• Toronto Guide

  • Toronto

• Accommodation

  • Find accommodation

• Things to do

  • Drinking
  • Eating
  • Shopping
  • Nightlife

Toronto Guide

Toronto

• Accommodation
• Eating
• Nightlife and entertainment

Map

1 of 6

TORONTO is the country's largest metropolis. It sprawls along the northern shore of Lake Ontario, its vibrant centre encased by a jangle of satellite townships and industrial zones that cover (as "Greater Toronto") some 100 square kilometres. For decades, Toronto was saddled with unflattering sobriquets ("Toronto the Good", "Hogtown") that reflected a largely deserved reputation for complacent mediocrity, but those dull days are long gone. Since the late 1950s, millions of dollars on glitzy architecture, slick museums, an excellent public-transport system, and the reclamation and development of the lakefront. As a result, Toronto has become one of North America's most likeable cities, an eminently liveable place whose citizens keep a wary eye on both their politicians and the developers.

Huge shopping malls and high-rise office blocks reflect the economic successes of the last decades, a boom that has attracted immigrants from all over the world, transforming an overwhelmingly Anglophone city into a cosmopolitan one of some sixty significant minorities. Nowhere is this better experienced than in its excellent cafés and restaurants. Toronto also boasts a pulsating club scene and a classy programme of performing arts.

The majority of sights are conveniently clustered in the city centre. The most celebrated is the CN Tower, the world's tallest freestanding structure, which stands next to the modern hump of the SkyDome sports stadium, now the Rogers Centre. Other prestige attractions include the Art Gallery of Ontario, which possesses a first-rate selection of Canadian painting, and the Royal Ontario Museum, where pride of place goes to the Chinese collection. Smaller galleries – the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art, the Bata Shoe Museumand the small but eclectic Gallery of Inuit Art – add to the city's charm. There are fascinating period homes too, most memorably the mock-Gothic extravagances of Casa Loma and the Victorian gentility of Spadina House not to mention the replica colonial fortress of Fort York where Toronto began. Spare time also for the good-looking buildings of the lively St Lawrence neighbourhoodand the Distillery District, not actually a district at all but rather Toronto's brightest arts and entertainments complex, sited in a capacious former distillery.

Diligent sightseers may be able to save money with the Toronto City Pass. Valid for nine days, it entitles you to free entrance to the CN Tower, the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Ontario Museum, Casa Loma, the Ontario Science Centre, and Toronto Zoo. It costs $55 and can be purchased at any of the six sights.