STARING down past my smoked salmon and crackers, I watched the ant-like figures of the Toronto Blue Jays do battle with the Miami Marlins.
A few minutes later, the baseball game had disappeared as the CN Tower’s 360 restaurant continued its rotation.
It takes 72 minutes for the restaurant to go all the way round but this dinner with a panoramic view was a treat 16 years in the making.
Back in the summer of 2010 I’d gazed up at Canada’s tallest free-standing structure from my seat in the Rogers Centre as Celtic and Manchester United played out a pre-season exhibition match.
Now, I finally had the chance to gaze down as the vast Lake Ontario stretched beyond the horizon on one side, with Canada’s biggest city sprawling north on the other.
After gorging on the signature chocolate tower dessert, it was time for the novelty of visiting the world’s highest wine cellar.
This temperature-controlled feat of engineering sits 1151 feet off the ground, stores 9000 bottles of wine and has room for a tasting table.
It was a delight but you can’t keep your head permanently in the clouds and there was so much more to explore at ground level.
Toronto bills itself as a ‘world city’ that thrives on diversity. That rich cultural stew also feeds into their love of big sporting events.
While the Blue Jays’ quest to make the World Series for the second year running continues, the World Cup is now the biggest show in town.
With so much focus on the USA ahead of this competition it has been easy to overlook the other two host nations. Mexico brought fire and passion to the tournament opener against South Africa in the Azteca Stadium and Canada has also been hosting games in two cities.
My trip coincided with the arrival of the World Cup on the final stop of its Canadian trophy tour. Former Italy defender Alessandro Nesta, a winner 20 years ago in Germany, was on hand to unveil the iconic statue on a stage outside City Hall.
Standing alongside big Nesta, Toronto mayor Olivia Chow spoke of the city’s pride and ready to throw open its doors to the world.
The province of Ontario struck a blow for fans when it introduced a new anti-scalping law in April, which forbids the sale of tickets above face value. It made Fifa reshape its own ticket resale site to comply.
Seven games are being played here but Toronto has been careful to ensure the World Cup complements rather than takes over daily life.
The sight of Canadian and Bosnian fans marching to the Toronto Stadium ahead of the first game brought noise and colour to the streets.
And like the fans, I found the best way to explore the city from my room at the fabulous Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel is on foot with a morning run along the harbour-front and an afternoon trawl of local record stores (shout out to Sonic Boom in Chinatown for offering up that Neil Young LP).
Best of all was the food tour of the Kensington Market area. There’s 200 languages spoken by residents of Toronto and you can pretty much find a food pairing for each.
GO: TORONTO
We were shown round by Jessica from Chopsticks and Forks who met us at Fresco’s, where Beatles posters decorated the walls and fish’n’chips was the order of the day.
This taste of home soon gave way to more exotic delights from Jamaica at Golden Patty, Chile at Jumbo Empanadas and, perhaps best of all, the Tibet Cafe’s momo dumplings.
To round it off we ended with a seat in the sun at Fika, a Scandinavian-themed cafe, drinking tea and munching gingerbread on their lovely back patio, where it was back to gazing up at the sky and I couldn’t have been happier.
