Cool Places in Toronto – Making the most of Ontario’s capital city
So it was the last day of my 3 day trip in Toronto and I wanted to make sure I spent some time visiting some of the cool places in Toronto and just soak up some of the city’s amazing culture and watch it do it’s thing.
To start off this compilation of cool places in Toronto I should note that rather than certain museums or monuments to go see I’m going to go into detail on some of the interesting districts and neighbourhoods to explore in Toronto.
Kensington market, Spadina Avenue, Yonge Street and the Entertainment District make up this list of cool places in Toronto. They all have something interesting to offer the wandering traveller and together they really add to the cultural offering of Toronto.
Below you will find a map showing where each of these cool places in Toronto are located!
1. Kensington Market
Kensington Market was my favourite place to wander as it was just completely full of indie shops, vintage boutiques, and the area was just steeped in art.
If you’re into smoking pot, this place has shops that sell all sorts of skins, pipes, bongs, shisha pipes, and bowls you could want – and then some.
Designer meets crazy and the norm is extinct in this fun, friendly side of Toronto. The food and drink on offer too is nothing short of tasty with some beautiful craft eateries and bars scattered around the area.
The market has it’s own brewing company to boot so expect fun, quirky, different, and exciting vibes from Kensington Market; it is the definition of cool – an amazing place to kick back and wander!
2. Spadina Ave. and Chinatown
Spadina Avenue is only a five minute walk from Kensington Market and it is a very unique avenue because it stretches right through downtown Toronto and changes character depending on what neighbourhood it passes through.
One particularly interesting neighbourhood is as always, Chinatown. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of Chinatown neighbourhoods in big metropolitan cities, it is essentially like immediately transporting from whatever city you’re in to Beijing, just by turning the corner.
Experiencing it the first time can actually be quite a weird experience as absolutely everything changes. Signs are in Mandarin; shop fronts, stores, public notices, restaurants, cafés, literally everything is transformed into Chinese but it is absolutely brilliant fun for a newbie to explore.
Toronto’s Chinatown is no exception! It was a lot of fun to explore and it’s definitely worth a few hours of your time if you want to soak up the Toronto culture.
3. Yonge St.
Yonge Street is still debated today about whether or not it is the longest street in the world. The claim is that the street is 1,896 kilometres long but because it turns into Highway 11 once it hits the US border people aren’t so convinced, neither was Guinness when they dropped it from their world record book in 1999!
Regardless of its contested length, Yonge St is as animated and bustling as streets can get. If you’re into ice hockey, the Hockey Hall-of-Fame is located on Yonge St.
Equally if you love big open squares in cities – Times Square comes to mind – then the Yonge-Dundas Square is a decent spot to sight-see. However more notably for you shopping fans is the Eaton Centre.
The Eaton Centre’s claim to fame is that it is the busiest mall in North America with 48,969,858 visitors in 2015 alone, and to put that into perspective the centre sees more annual visitors than Disneyland and Walt Disney World combined.
I’m not massive on shopping centres, I don’t generally buy a lot of new things and when I do its never usually on the spur of a moment. Most of my money goes on flights, accommodation, and spending money – leaving me broke for the rest of the time!
4. Entertainment District
The Entertainment District of Toronto is really the beating heart of the city. You have some of the city’s best hotels, restaurants, activities, and sights to see here. The CN Tower, Ripley’s Aquarium, the Steam Whistle brewery is here and of course Toronto’s baseball team – the Blue Jays – calls this area home with their stadium – the Rogers Centre.
One particular street – Mercer Street – is where I spent my last night. You will find some of the best clubs, nightclubs, and bars in the city in this area and one in particular club – The Second City Theatre – offers one of the funniest comedy groups I have ever seen.
I’m big on comedy and I’ve been to see Dara O’Briain and Andy Parson live who were just brilliant but never have I seen a group of comedians who perform sketch and improv comedy as good as these guys. Well, what is to be expected from a comedy club who has produced: Dan Aykroyd, James Belushi, John Belushi, Steve Carell, Stephen Colbert, Rachel Dratch, Tina Fey, Bill Murray, Mike Myers, and Catherine O’Hara to name a few.
The Second City comedy club was the perfect way to end the three day trip. If you want to know more about the CN Tower then continue onto the first part of this series and if you want to learn more about Canada’s Wonderland then continue onto the second part!
5. Roundhouse Park
Roundhouse Park is the extra-special bonus on this list. It’s not like the other places on this list where they are neighbourhoods or districts but I still felt it deserved a place on the list of cool places in Toronto.
It is a 17 acre park in downtown Toronto that is home to the Toronto Railway Museum and a preserved locomotive roundhouse as well as some historic trains; which, if you’re travelling with kids- they’d go mad for. For the adults it is also home to the Steam Whistle Brewing company. It definitely deserves a spot on this cool places in Toronto list!
