Sights in Toronto
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CN Tower
Though it's been around for more than 30 years, the funky CN Tower still warrants 'icon' status. Its primary function is as a radio and TV communications tower, but relieving tourists of as much cash as possible seems to be the second order of business. It's expensive, but riding the great glass elevators up the highest freestanding structure in the world (553m) is one of those things in life you just have to do. On a clear day, the views from the Observation Deck are astounding; if it's hazy, you won't be able to see a thing. Beware: two million visitors every year means summer queues for the elevator can be up to two hours long – going up and coming back down. For…
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Art Gallery of Ontario
The AGO houses art collections both excellent and extensive (bring your stamina). Renovations, designed by Frank Gehry, were completed in 2008, and include a new entrance and a massive glass and wood facade. Other highlights include rare Québecois religious statuary, First Nations and Inuit carvings, major Canadian works by the Group of Seven, the Henry Moore sculpture pavilion, and a restored Georgian house, The Grange. There's a surcharge for special exhibits.
While you're in the 'hood, note that TIFF Cinematheque screens movies at the AGO's Jackman Hall.
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St Lawrence Market & Hall
Old York's sensational market has been a neighborhood meeting place for over two centuries. The restored, high-trussed 1845 South Market building houses more than 50 specialty food stalls: cheese vendors, fishmongers, butchers, bakers and pasta makers with lots of action and yelling of prices in silly voices. Inside the old council chambers upstairs, the St Lawrence Market Gallery (admission free; 10am-4pm Wed-Fri, 9am-4pm Sat, noon-4pm Sun) is now the city's exhibition hall, with rotating displays of paintings, photographs, documents and historical relics. Hordes of school kids laugh it up, perhaps not as enthralled as you might be. On the opposite side of Front St, the…
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Casa Loma
The mock medieval Casa Loma lords over The Annex on a cliff that was once the shoreline of the glacial Lake Iroquois, from which Lake Ontario derived. Climb the 27m Baldwin Steps up the slope from Spadina Ave, north of Davenport Rd.
The 98-room mansion – a crass architectural orgasm of castellations, chimneys, flagpoles, turrets and Rapunzel balconies – was built between 1911 and 1914 for Sir Henry Pellat, a wealthy financier who made bags of cash from his contract to provide Toronto with electricity. He later lost everything in land speculation, the resultant foreclosure forcing Hank and his wife to move out. Parking costs $3/9 per hour/day.
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401 Richmond
Inside an early-20th-century lithographer's warehouse, restored in 1994, the 18,500-sq-meter 401 Richmond bursts forth with 130 diverse contemporary art and design galleries displaying the heartfelt works of painters, architects, photographers, printmakers, sculptors and publishers. The original floorboards creak between the glass elevator, ground-floor cafe, leafy courtyard and rooftop garden. A new lounge space livens things up. Check the website for events and tours.
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Goethe-Institut Gallery
This esteemed German cultural centre presents temporary exhibitions of contemporary fine arts emphasizing the avant-garde from Europe and across Canada. German language courses, German film screenings with English subtitles ($5 per person), concerts and dramatic readings are also on the agenda. Check the online schedule.
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University of Toronto – St George Campus
Life at the University of Toronto rotates around the grassy/muddy expanse of King's College Circle, where students study on blankets, kick soccer balls around and dream of graduation day in domed Convocation Hall.
Dating from 1919, sociable Hart House is an all-purpose art gallery, music performance space, theater, student lounge and cafe. Soldiers' Tower next door is a memorial to students who lost their lives during WWI and WWII. A nearby mid-19th-century Romanesque Revival building houses the U of T Art Centre, a contemporary art |gallery for Canadian and world cultures.
If you're architecturally bent or have an inclination for urban planning, check out the Eric Arthur…
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Royal Ontario Museum
The multidisciplinary ROM was already Canada's biggest natural history museum, even before embarking upon the 'Renaissance ROM' building project, which should be complete by the time you read this. The new work involves a magnificent explosion of architectural crystals on Bloor St, housing an array of new galleries.
ROM's collections bounce between natural science, ancient civilization and art exhibits. The Chinese temple sculptures, Gallery of Korean Art and costumery and textile collections are some of the best in the world. Kids file out of yellow school buses chugging by the sidewalk and rush to the dinosaur rooms, Egyptian mummies and Jamaican bat-cave replica. Don't…
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Scarborough Bluffs
The Scarborough Bluffs are a 14km stretch of glacial lakeshore cliffs. Elizabeth Simcoe named it in 1793 after Scarborough in Yorkshire, England. Several parks provide access to cliff tops, with views across Lake Ontario.
From Kingston Rd (Hwy 2), turn south at Cathedral Bluffs Dr to reach the highest section of the bluffs, Cathedral Bluffs Park (65m). Erosion has created cathedral spire formations, exposing evidence of five different glacial periods. You can also access the shore at Galloway Rd further east. Below this section of bluffs off Brimley Rd, landfill has been used to form Bluffer's Park, a private marina and recreational area.
Unless you have wheels, getting to…
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Maple Leaf Gardens
This hallowed hockey arena was built in an astounding five months during the Great Depression, and was home to the Toronto Maple Leafs for over 50 years. The Leafs lost their first game (and the last at the Gardens in 2009) to the Chicago Blackhawks in 1931, but went on to win 13 Stanley Cups before relocating to the Air Canada Centre in 1999. Over the years, Elvis, Sinatra and the Beatles have all belted out tunes here.
The Gardens were bought by grocery chain Loblaws in 2004, but have sat unchanged since. When we visited, renovations were under way (with a $60 million price tag) that will include sports facilities, a Loblaws store and a memorabilia museum. Renovations…
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Todmorden Mills
Sitting quietly by the Don River, Todmorden Mills is an industrial relic housed in a late-18th-century gristmill-turned-sawmill, then brewery and distillery, then paper mill. Historical exhibits loiter inside the Brewery Gallery, where eager guides show visitors around old millers' houses and the petite Don train station. The renovated Papermill Theatre and Gallery showcases local and emerging artists, as well as performances by the resident Eastside Players. Nature paths start near the bridge and wind back to the secluded Todmorden Mills Wildflower Preserve, 9 hectares of wildflowers growing on former industrial wasteland, complete with boardwalks and viewing platforms.…
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Hanlan's Point
At the west end of Centre Island by the Toronto City Centre Airport is Hanlan's Point, named after world-champion sculler 'Ned' Hanlan (1855–1904), a member of the first family to permanently settle here. Babe Ruth hit his first professional home run here in 1914 while playing minor-league baseball – the ball drowned in Lake Ontario, the ultimate souvenir lost forever… The sport of iceboating atop the frozen lake was at its peak until the 1940s. Thanks to climate change, winters nowadays are too mild for it.
Beyond the free tennis courts and a fragile ecosystem of low-lying dunes sustaining rare species, the not-so-rare nekkid humanus roams free on the gray sand of …
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Gibraltar Point
Gibraltar Point, as per Gibraltar in the Mediterranean, was the most easily defensible point in the harbor. Captain John Simcoe ordered a British fort built here in 1800. It was destroyed just 13 years later during the American raid on York. Not far inland stands the photogenic Gibraltar Point Lighthouse (1809), just 25m tall, built with grey limestone quarried at Queenston on the Niagara escarpment. The lighthouse was the first of its kind on the Great Lakes, using sperm-whale oil to fuel its lamp. Its first keeper, JP Radan Muller, disappeared mysteriously in 1815. Years later human bones were unearthed nearby, supporting the theory that Muller was knocked off by…
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Mt Pleasant Cemetery
Rest assured, we have space' is the slogan here, and indeed, it's hard to imagine a more pleasantly assuring place for the ultimate rest. Since the 19th century, many of Toronto's brilliant and best (or at least richest) citizens have concurred, including classical musician Glenn Gould, former prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie, Eaton's founder Timothy Eaton, Titanic survivor Arthur Godfrey Peuchen, and Foster Hewitt, Canada's 'Voice of Hockey, ' who coined the phrase, 'He shoots, he scores!' The cemetery is north of Moore Ave, between Yonge St and Bayview Ave. Guide maps are available from the office near the south gate on the east side of Mt Pleasant Rd, which cuts…
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Trinity College
The most famous University of Toronto college is the ultratraditional Trinity College, where entering collegians are anachronistically required to wear academic robes to meals. It's worth looking around the traditional quadrangle and the Anglican Chapel, which was designed by Sir Gilbert Scott, the same man responsible for Britain's ubiquitous red telephone booths. Pick up a self-guided tour pamphlet from the rack near the door. The leafy Philosopher ' s Walk leads north along the east side of Trinity College towards the stone-and-iron Alexandra Gates on Bloor St W, just east of the Royal Conservatory of Music.
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Fort York
Established by the British in 1793 to defend the town of York (as Toronto was then known), Fort York was almost entirely destroyed during the War of 1812 when a small band of Ojibwe warriors and British troops couldn't stop US troops.
Today, a handful of the original log, stone and brick buildings have been restored. In summer, men decked out in 19th-century British military uniforms carry out preposterous marches and drills, firing musket volleys into the sky. Kids feign interest or run around the fort's embankments with wooden rifles. Tours run hourly from May to September, and a fancy new visitor's centre was being planned when we visited. It's, off Fleet St W, east of…
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Chum/Citytv Complex
Inside the historic industrial gothic Wellesley Building (1913), the progressive Citytv network films its foibles and broadcasts outtakes from their infamous Speakers Corner on the John St corner. Here, anyone can step inside the public video booth, drop a loonie ($1) in the slot, wait for the five-second countdown then record themselves saying or doing pretty much anything for two minutes. At the adjacent studios of MuchMusic (www.muchmusic.com), the Canadian version of MTV, pop stars dash inside from their limos as teen fans cheer à la Beatlemania. Above the east parking lot, a CityPulse news truck spins its wheels as it explodes out of the Citytv studio walls.
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Exhibition Place
Every August, historic Exhibition Place is revived for its original purpose, the Canadian National Exhibition. During 'The Ex', millions of visitors flood the midway for carnival rides, lumberjack competitions and more good, honest, homegrown fun than a Sunday-school picnic in June. The beaux arts Victory statue over Princes' Gate has stood proud since 1927, when Canada celebrated its 60th birthday.
Other events held at Exhibition Place throughout the year include the Grand Prix of Toronto in July and a slew of spectator sports and indie design shows. At other times the grounds are often spookily bereft of visitors. Parking costs $12 (after 6pm it will set you back back…
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Tommy Thompson Park
A 5km-long artificial peninsula between the Harbourfront and The Beaches, Tommy Thompson Park reaches further into Lake Ontario than the Toronto Islands. This 'accidental wilderness' – constructed from Outer Harbour dredgings and fill from downtown building sites – has become a phenomenal wildlife success. It's one of the world's largest nesting places for ring-billed gulls, and is a haven for terns, black-crowned night heronS, turtles, owls, foxes, even coyotes.
The park is open to the public on weekends and holidays; cars and pets are prohibited. Summer schedules offer interpretive programs and guided walks, usually with an ecological theme. At the end of the park…
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Markham Village
Not to be confused with the town of Markham north of Toronto, this downtown enclave entails a couple of blocks of classy shops, bookstores, eateries and galleries along Markham St. Nearby on the corner of Bloor and Bathurst Sts, Honest Ed ' s is a gaudy discount-shopping emporium owned by theatre impresario Ed Mirvish. You might think you've teleported down to Las Vegas as giant multiglobe signs flash corny messages like 'Don't just stand there, buy something!' and 'Honest Ed's a nut, but look at the cashew save!' Comedy gold…The queues before opening time have to be seen to be believed.
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Distillery District
The slick, 5-hectare Distillery District emerges phoenixlike from the 1832 Gooderham and Worts distillery – once the British Empire's largest distillery. Victorian industrial warehouses have been converted into soaring galleries, artists studios, pricey design shops, coffeehouses, restaurants, the Young Centre for Performing Arts and the Mill Street Brewery. Wedding parties shoot photos against a backdrop of redbrick and cobblestone; clean-cut couples shop for leather lounge suites beneath charmingly decrepit gables and gantries. In summer expect live jazz, exhibitions and food-focused events.
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Hockey Hall of Fame
Inside an ornate rococo gray stone Bank of Montreal building (c 1885) on the Yonge St lower concourse, the Hockey Hall of Fame gives hockey fans everything they could possibly want. Check out the collection of Texas Chainsaw Massacre–esque goalkeeping masks, attempt to stop Wayne Gretzky's virtual shot or have your photo taken with hockey's biggest prize – the hefty Stanley Cup (no trifling shield or pint-sized urn for these boys, oh no). Even visitors unfamiliar with this super-fast, ultra- violent sport will be impressed with the interactive multimedia exhibits and hockey nostalgia.
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Harbourfront Centre
The 4-hectare Harbourfront Centre puts on a kaleidoscopic variety of performing arts events at the York Quay Centre; many are kid-focused, some are free. Performances sometimes take place on the covered outdoor concert stage by the lake. Also outside are a lakeside ice-skating rink where you can slice up the winter ice, and the ramshackle Artists' Gardens – seasonally rotating raised planter beds constructed by local artists in the spirit of 'guerilla gardening.' Parking costs $12 to $15.
Don't miss the free galleries, including the Photo Passage and the functioning Craft Studio.
Power Plant Gallery is a big-reputation gallery celebrating contemporary Canadian art.
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RC Harris Filtration Plant
Commanding heavenly views of the lakefront on a priceless slab of real estate, the elegantly proportioned RC Harris Filtration Plant is a modern art-deco masterpiece that has appeared in countless movies and TV shows, as well as in Michael Ondaatje's In the Skin of a Lion. Originally residents disparagingly dubbed it the 'Palace of Purification,' due to hefty construction costs during the Great Depression. The operational filtration plant is currently closed to the public, but hard-core Ondaatje fans should call to see if tours are back on the agenda.
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Ontario Science Centre
Climb a rock wall, journey to the center of a human heart, catch a criminal with DNA fingerprinting and race an Olympic bobsled at the excellent, interactive Ontario Science Centre. Over 800 high-tech exhibits and live demonstrations wow the kids (and the adults at the back, pretending not to be interested). Also here is the giant domed Omnimax Cinema. Check the website for family events, including theme-night sleepovers ($54, reservations required). Parking is $8. To get here, take the subway to Eglinton then bus 34, or Pape then bus 25.
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