Family Day

What better way to spend Family Day than with your family?

Rob, Alex and I set off gargoyle hunting with the book 'Faces on Places' as our field guide, starting with the Claridge apartments, built in the late 1920s.  The architecture is described as being built in a 'Venetian Gothic' style.

The angels that buttressed the exterior walls were graceful, but it was the interior lobby that was  absolutely stunning, with the ceiling embellished by none other than JEH MacDonald and his son Thoreau. The interior feels Spanish-American. 24 karat gold leaf was not used sparingly in the zodiac illustrations that glowed warmly on the ceiling.  Rob recalled some of the illustrations in books from his childhood, not realizing Thoreau was the offspring of one of the Group of Seven.


How could we not choose to eat our Family Day lunch at a place in Chinatown called Mother's Dumplings?  Alex vouched for the place, saying it was a favourite of his and Penny's. We waited in line a good twenty minutes for our table, watching the cooks in the open kitchen preparing the handmade dumplings. The wait only made lunch seem all the more delicious.

Toronto's founding fathers photo credit

After eating we popped into Gwartzmans across the street for some art supplies...  some brightly coloured baking clay for future rainy day fun.

City Hall gargoyle photo credit

Then off to see more grotesques, driving past City Hall and through the Financial District, looking high up into the buildings and trying to spot fantastic creatures as we passed.

We finished our daytrip at Cherry Beach, watching the shadows grow long in the late afternoon sun.