"Toronto, Canada" a Toronto Travel Page by SWFC_Fan

Where?

Toronto is by far the largest city in Canada, with a population of around 5 million inhabitants.

Toronto is located in the province of Ontario, in the south east of the country and on the north-western shores of Lake Ontario, which separates the city from neighbouring USA.

The Canadian capital, Ottawa, lies about 400km to the north-east of Toronto.

How to get there?

Toronto has air links with major cities all over the world. Flights land at Lester B Pearson Airport, about 25km north of downtown.

Buses and taxis connect the airport with the city centre. Taxis charge a flat rate fare depending on your destination (ie they are not metered). I paid 43 CAD for a taxi from directly outside the arrivals hall to my hotel on Jarvis Street on the eastern edge of downtown.

Returning to the airport for my flight back to the UK, I caught the Airport Express bus from outside the Royal York Hotel in downtown (cost: 16.45 CAD).

Frequent buses and trains connect Toronto with other cities and towns in Canada and the USA.

During my stay in the city, I caught a bus from the central terminal on Bay Street to Niagara Falls. The journey time to the Falls is approximately 90 minutes and the cost of a same day return ticket with Coach Canada is 35.68 CAD. The same bus continues across the USA border to Buffalo and ultimately to New York.

Prices correct at February 2006: (1 GBP = 2 CAD = 1.5 Euros)

A few recommendations of things to see and do based on my 8 days in the city:

CN Tower

The CN Tower was the world’s tallest free standing tower at the time of my visit in February 2006, and is arguably Toronto’s most famous tourist attraction. For a cost of around 28 CAD I rode the fast elevator up to the observation deck and visited the famous glass floor. While the tower itself is similar to many other such towers, the glass floor is unique amongst such towers. Walk across it if you dare! Finally, I took the elevator up another 33 storeys to the Skypod for more amazing panoramic views of the city and Lake Ontario.

Yonge Street

Yonge Street is the main thoroughfare in downtown Toronto and is also the longest street in the world! Yonge Street was formerly Highway 11 and it used to stretch for nearly 1900 km from its starting point at Toronto’s waterfront. Nowadays, it is a mere 56km long, ending at a place called Holland Marsh to the north of Toronto. The portion of Yonge Street in downtown Toronto houses many bars, cafes, restaurants and shops and is busy with people day and night.

Chinatown

Tha Chinatown area of the city, bordered by Dundas Street West and Spadina Avenue, is home to Toronto’s large Chinese community. Chinese shops, markets and restaurants dominate the area and this is a good place to come for a good value lunch, with many of the Chinese restaurants offering set menu meals between 11am and 3pm.

Take a tour of the Rogers Centre

For a cost of 13.50 CAD you can take a guided tour of the Rogers Centre. The Rogers Centre was formerly known as the Sky Dome and is home to the Toronto Blue Jays baseball team and the Toronto Argonauts American Football team. It also hosts numerous concerts and, at the time of my visit, was hosting a car show. The tour takes you behind the scenes of the stadium, including visiting seats in the upper tier, the press facilities area and a couple of the executive suites.

Steam Whistle Brewery Tour

The guided tour of the Steam Whistle brewery is excellent value at just 6 CAD. The price includes free beers while waiting for the tour to start (Tip: arrive at 5 past the hour, the last tour will have just started and you’ll get 55 minutes of free drinking!), as well as a good humoured tour of the site, more free beers at the end of the tour and a souvenir glass or bottle opener.

Visit Niagara Falls

The Niagara Falls are located just a 90 minute bus ride from Toronto. For more details, please visit my Niagara Falls page.

Hockey Hall of Fame

The Hockey Hall of Fame (entrance cost: 9 CAD) houses a number of exhibits of ice hockey memorabilia (shirts, skates, pennants, photographs etc), a number of interactive games and computers with detailed information of players and teams and a trophy room displaying the Stanley Cup. There are also areas where budding stars can practice their shooting skills, table hockey games and a theatre showing a classic match.

Casa Loma

Casa Loma is North America’s only turreted castle and it cuts an impressive figure on a hillside to the north of downtown Toronto. I didn’t go inside, but it is possible to do so to explore the numerous rooms and underground passages.

Best of the rest…

I was particularly impressed with Nathan Philips Square in front of the City Hall – at the time of my visit, the pool in the square was iced over and was full of skaters of all ages. At the top of University Avenue, the grand Parliament Building sits in the middle of impressive parkland, while a short walk further north brings you to the impressive campus of Toronto University - a selection of ivy covered buildings and snow covered grounds. For shopping, check out the large Eaton Centre mall in downtown, while the nearby Dundas Square is a focal point of the city and is known as “Toronto’s Times Square”.

A few observations from my 8 days in Toronto:

Who says first impressions are important?!

It’s fair to say that no country in the world has ever made a worse first impression on me than Canada! Arriving after a long flight (I saved money by taking a flight which involved a 5 hour wait in Amsterdam airport), I spent ages trying to convince immigration officials that my reasons for visiting Toronto were legitimate. “Why would you want to come to Canada in February?”, “You are visiting Canada even though you don’t know anybody here?”, “Don’t you have a proper return ticket - what’s an e-ticket?”, “Are you sure you have sufficient funds to cover your stay?” etc, etc…
By this time, I wasn’t sure why I wanted to visit Canada at all. February or otherwise. Maybe they could put me on a flight to some place a bit more welcoming….Iraq maybe? I was eventually let in to the country and set about trying to get some money. Alas, none of the airport’s ATMs accept Visa cards, so I had to make a 15 minute walk (in temperatures significantly below zero!), to find an ATM at which I could withdraw cash. My mobile phone wouldn’t work either - but I’ll accept partial blame for that! Eventually, with Canadian Dollars in hand, I found a taxi and headed for my hotel. I arrived 20 minutes after check-in had closed and found a sign on the front door telling me to phone up a number from a call box in order to obtain the access code. I did this, and was let in. I then used all the Dollars that I had on me to pay for my hotel room for 8 nights - no worries, I could withdraw some more the next morning. WRONG!!. I couldn’t make another withdrawal for 24 hours, having withdrawn a maximum of 500 CAD the previous evening - despite this being worth only half of my maximum daily withdrawal in sterling terms!! I changed the few pounds that I had on me into Canadian Dollars, phoned home, bought some bread to toast in my room and cursed everything about Canada!!!. The fact that the outdoor daytime temperature was below minus 10 degrees did little to improve my mood!!

After my initial 24 hours of problems, I grew to really like Toronto and thoroughly enjoyed my stay in the city. I do still hold a grudge though against the immigration officials whose patronising questions and cold welcome nearly tainted my experience of this city! :-)

So cold outside!

Despite daytime maximum temperatures of minus 7 celcius (dropping to well below minus 10 with the windchill factor), people insisted on telling me that it was “unseasonably warm”! At the equivalent time the previous year, temperatures were apparently as low as MINUS 30 celcius - so locals were naturally enjoying this “heatwave”. By contrast, I found that 5 layers of clothing were generally enough to keep me from freezing - while my face tended to remain red raw for most of my stay! Maybe the immigration officials had a point - why would you want to go to Canada in February!!?

World’s most multicultural city?

Toronto has been voted the world’s most multicultural city by the United Nations. This is probably a fair call. While the city has numerous English and French speaking people, it also has a large Chinatown and neighbourhoods full of Indians, Greeks, Poles, Brazilians, Germans, Italians…. In fact, over 100 different nationalities form the diverse communities of this world city. On the streets you will hear conversations being carried out in a multitude of different languages, while the selection of bars and restaurants reflects the international make-up of Toronto.