Yorkville and the Distillery Historical District – what a great choice of neighbourhoods for my last day in Toronto. I had in the back of my mind that Yorkville was slightly hippy-ish, but boy was I behind the times! Not only has Yorkville gone up scale, it was host to the fabulous Fleurs de Villes.

The Fleurs de Villes showcases 36 floral arrangements – sometimes inside, more often on the street – by Toronto’s “favourite florists.” The entire project is sponsored by Porsche, but companies in Yorkville also sponsor their own creations. All flowers are fresh; attendants were busy replacing wilting blooms and spritzing the arrangements to keep them looking their best.

There are floral arrangements that dress up or create an entrance. Please! Click on the small photos to see larger versions of the full uncropped photos! It’s not that my photos are so compelling, it’s that the arrangements are so splendid!

There are indoor arrangements, found mostly in lobbies of large buildings. Sometimes it was not possible to take a photo without a model. 🙃

There are arrangements so beautiful that a close up image is also needed.

Some floral arrangements aren’t even part of the Fleurs de Villes. They’re just part of Toronto’s beautiful spring.

There are arrangements that pull at my heart strings and whet my appetite. It was almost noon after all and past five somewhere in the world.

In the midst of all this floral beauty sat an Anglican church really getting with the times. Every Sunday there are two services – an earlier Zoom service and a later in-person one. There is a Rock Eurcharest featuring Neil Young (or perhaps his music?) and a QR code for more info. How much more with it can you get?

Having been completely flowered out, I headed to the Distillery Historical District to meet my friend Lynn and go on a Segway tour! Lynn and I had our tour leader, Nicole, to ourselves which was fun. (We could misbehave and no one but Nicole would know.) She admitted that her oldest customers had been in their mid-60s. Yes! Lynn and I won the oldest riders prize – not something to be sneezed at! 😋

The Distillery District first came to life in 1832 when the Worts and the Gooderhams came to Canada. As an aside, Lynn is related to the Gooderhams, so this was an especially interesting tour for her. They started out milling flour, but Worts’s precocious 18-year-old son took the business into whiskey production – a good move since the water carried cholera and people had to drink somerthing. Thus the area became known as a distillery district. Most of the old buildings still stand, some improved with updated brick. They are now rented out to various businesses, at street level mostly galleries, shopping and eating.

The prominent open heart was today the place of a photoshoot for a gentleman who had just proposed to his lady. Sigh. I imagine this is not an uncommon sight.

Sadly, I don’t have many photos of thie Distillery Historical District because Segway riding is a two handed sport.

Lynn and I had great fun on the tour. The riding was at first a challenge but we got pretty good at it. Nicole painted the history of the area for us, and answered all our questions with good humour. She convinced us that we could at the very least POSE one-handed.

Following the ride, and still a little shaky from our Segway triumph, Lynn and I retired to the District taqueria for some guacamole AND A WELL EARNED GLASS OF WINE!

These two weeks in Toronto have been wonderful. I am grateful to my son-in-law’s brother who loaned me his apartment while he was out of the country. I am grateful to the young woman at Shoppers Drug Mart who explained to me how the Presto card and buses and trams and the subway work. I am sooo grateful to my friend Lynn who joined in some of my exploits and showed me a Toronto I wouldn’t have otherwise seen.

A great trip. Now on to Princeton and New York for more adventures. Ain’t post-COVID travel the best?