Toronto City Guide
Official name: Toronto
- Language: English (official) and French (official)
- Religión:
- Currency: Canadian dollar
- Climate: Toronto's climate is moderated by its southerly location within Canada and its proximity to Lake Ontario; its climate is among the mildest of any place in Canada east of the Rocky Mountain range. It is the northern range of the DFa type Humid continental climate. The city experiences four distinct seasons with considerable variance in day to day temperature, particularly during the winter months. At different times of the year, the proximity to Lake Ontario and the other Great Lakes has localized and regional impacts on the climate.
Toronto Sights and Museums
- CN Tower : The world's tallest freestanding structure measures 553.33 m ( 1,815 ft ., 5 in .) will celebrate its 30th year in June of 2006. Check out the view from Sky Pod, an observation gallery 447 m ( 1,465 ft .) in the air or from a glass floor on the observation deck where you can look down 342 m ( 1,122 ft .) to the street below. The tower's base has a complex of shops, a marketplace café and an arcade. Take a spin on the motion simulator ride Lego Racers–The Ride
- Ontario Science Centre: An informative and entertaining centre with more than 600 interactive exhibits to get your hands on. Exhibits explore botany, physics and chemistry as well as sports, communication, environmental issues and the human body.
- Royal Ontario Museum: Galleries feature exhibits on art, social history, archaeology, natural history and more. The Samuel European Galleries comprise two wings and include The Judaica Gallery, which depicts Jewish life in post-medieval Europe , design influences and Toronto 's Jewish community. Other European rooms trace the history of the decorative arts and other Europeans arts in a variety of design settings, including art deco, gothic and rococo. In Hands-on Biodiversity, explore the variety of life on Earth with the help of a backyard composter, a real beehive and a living stream. The Bat Cave is a walk-through diorama featuring thousands of roosting bats, and predators such as a wild cat and snake. The Prince Takamado Gallery of Japan features ceramics, sculpture, prints, paintings, lacquers and armour; Gallery of Canada: First Peoples explores Native cultures and art by Canada's aboriginal peoples through more than 1,000 artifacts; The Herman Herzog Levy Gallery exhibits paintings, textiles and works on paper from the Chinese, Japanese and Korean collections; The A.G. Leventis Foundation Gallery of Ancient Cyprus showcases approximately 300 artifacts focusing on works created from the Bronze Age to the Hellenic period (2,200 to 30 B.C.) feature among other collections.
- Niagara Falls: Not many sights are as awe-inspiring as the falls. Every second, 2,832 cubic metres of water drops over the precipice, crashing down 52 metres onto the rocks below and creating a spray so voluminous it's impossible to see the impact.
- Black Creek Pioneer Village: Re-creates the Ontario of more than 100 years ago. Costumed staff demonstrates skills such as blacksmithing, candle-making, rug braiding, woodworking, open-hearth cooking, weaving and more.
- Casa Loma: This majestic 98-room castle perched on a hill above downtown features 21 fireplaces, bronze doors, secret passageways, towers, and a conservatory with steam pipes in the flower beds. Built from 1906 to 1914 by financier Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, the $3.5-million project reflects a bygone era of grand living and has been featured on A&E's America 's Castles. Casa Loma boasts beautiful landscaped grounds with themed areas and extensive gardens.
- Art Gallery of Ontario: One of North America 's largest public art museums, with a 40,000-piece collection that spans Canadian, Inuit, European, modern and contemporary.
Toronto Entertainment
- All of Toronto 's main festivals and events take place between May and October, when there's little chance of snow and plenty of light by which to see them. Summertime festivals begin with mid-June's Caravan, a nine-day cultural exchange between the city's ethnic groups. The annual Pride Week culminates in an outrageous out-of-the-closet parade on Church St . The excellent Downtown Jazz Festival attracts local and international players in June and early July. With scarcely a beat lost, Toronto 's music scene segues neatly into the Toronto Bluesfest, enlivening the Harbour front in early July.
- January 1: New Year's Day,
- March/April: Easter Victoria Day
- Monday proceeding May 25
- July 1: Canada Day ,
- August 1: Simcoe Day
- July: flags drop at the Molson Grand Prix.
- August, Caribana, an ever-growing Caribbean festival, celebrates with a weekend of reggae, steel drum and calypso music and dance.
- September: the internationally renowned Toronto International Film Festival has cinema buffs swooning in the aisles.
- December 25-26: Christmas and Boxing Day
Toronto Transports
How to get there by plain: The first and last on-the-ground view of Toronto that many visitors get. All terminals, most notably the sleek Terminal 3, have several shops for last-minute gift and souvenir purchases.
- By car: Major highways leading into Toronto are the QEW, the 404, the 401, the 400, and the 427. Toronto is in the enviable position of being the largest city in Canada , so it's relatively easy to find a sign pointing you in the right direction. Be advised that traffic on incoming highways can be extremely heavy.
The main streets in Toronto are laid out in a grid pattern that makes it one of the easiest cities to get around in by car. Getting from point to point anywhere in the city can be achieved with only a few turns. Parking in the downtown core can be expensive, but is plentiful and inexpensive or free throughout the rest of the city.
- Ferries: To visit the Toronto islands, take a ferry from the docks at the foot of Bay Street at Queens Quay. From Union Station, you can take the Harbourfront LRT (No. 510 streetcar) and get off at the first stop, or walk south on Bay to The Westin Harbour Castle Hotel; the docks are down a path on the west side of the building.
The Government of Ontario operates an extensive rail and bus transit system called go transit that links the neighbouring cities and suburbs with the City of Toronto . Thirty-eight trains on seven train lines run 179 trips, and carry over 160,000 passengers a day. An additional 288 buses feed the main rail lines. The Toronto transit commission (TTC) provides public transit within the City of Toronto . Its backbone is the city's subway system, which includes the "U"-shaped north-south Yonge-University-Spadina line, the east-west Bloor-Danforth line, the east-west Sheppard line through the northern part of the city, and the Scarborough RT line running through the eastern part of the city ( Scarborough ). The TTC also operates an extensive network of buses and streetcars.
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