Travel - Visiting Toronto for the First Time

I'm in the middle of a road trip vacation, seeing sights in Upstate New York and Canada and am currently in Toronto for a couple of days.

Tononto is a very nice city, easily bikable or walkable and lots of things to see and do. We are staying at a hotel a few blocks from the CN Tower, a very tall space needle like structure not far from the waterfront and right next to the Rogers Center, where the Blue Jays play baseball.

Toronto has a beautiful skyline, with lots of interesting buildings. From sky scrapers to its legislature building, there is a variety of interesting architecture.

Toronto certainly has its share of glass, concrete and steel towers.

But also interesting structures like the opera house in the bottom right corner of the photo below.

And then there's the traditional brownstone European architecture of the legislative offices.

On the day we arrived, my wife and I walked down to the CN Tower and Rogers Center just to check it out. It was rather crowded and over $30/person to go to the top of the tower so we decided to pass on that and continue down to the waterfront.

On the way is Roundhouse Park, which is an old railroad turntable with plenty of historic trains to see. Kids and or train aficionados will certainly want to check this out. We looked around briefly and then continued down to the waterfront.

The waterfront includes a boardwalk and walking path that goes along the waterfront in each direction for quite a way. You can take Harbor cruises, rent bikes, paddle boats or kayaks. There are plenty of food options down there as well. The Hockey Hall of Fame is also downtown, if you are a hockey fan.

Today we visited the Royal Ontario Museum, which I found similar to the U.S. Smithsonian's Natural History Museum.

There were dinosaur skeletons, gemstones, and exhibits of artifacts from most major cultures around the world. My favorites were the minerals and gemstones and the Chinese exhibit.

The museum itself had some great architectural features including its Staircase of Wonders and the ceiling in the main atrium.

This ceiling was truly amazing.

We spent a good three hours at the museum and then went around the corner to have lunch. This neighborhood is a high end shopping district, if that's your thing. We were just trying to find a reasonable place for lunch and ended up at the rooftop patio of Hemmingways, which served our purposes just fine.

After lunch, we Ubered up to the Edwards Gardens and the Toronto Botanical Gardens. We had a nice walk in the large park, saw some pretty flowers, but it didn't hold up to some of the gardens we've seen in other large cities. As you can see below, it was scenic, but probably not worth the $45 dollars spent out and back on Uber.

All in all, Toronto is a beautiful city with plenty to do and see. We ate at some fantastic restaurants, including Grey Gardens, which had the best brisket I have ever had. We are heading south to Niagara on the Lake early tomorrow, but will definitely be back at some point to check out the things we missed on this trip.