Greater Toronto Area (GTA)

Totally Toronto - chic, trendy and alive

What could be better than visiting Canada's largest and most multicultural urban area, where world-class amenities merge with outdoor pursuits? Known globally as ‘Home to the World,' a wide array of cultural groups form a dynamic metropolis that has a reputation for being one of the friendliest spots in the world.

Toronto, with a population of 2.5 million, is North America's fifth-largest city. And yet it proudly bills itself as a city of neighborhoods - with such friendly and explorable areas to visit as Portugal Village, Greektown, Little India, Little Italy and not one but six Chinatowns.

Tap into Toronto

On a clear day, you can almost see forever in Toronto - especially if you travel to the lookout of the CN Tower, where you can enjoy the cafe, revolving restaurant, nightclub or a view from the glass-bottom floor. For a special treat, trolley up another 33 floors to Bud's Bubble in the Sky Pod. From here you can see across Lake Ontario, Harbourfront, Ontario Place and the Rogers Centre.

In addition to world-class restaurants and hotels, the City of Toronto boasts the Royal Ontario Museum, the Art Gallery of Ontario and live theaters featuring first-run and pre-Broadway performances. For the sports crowd, there's professional baseball, hockey, football and basketball. And for those sporting types who prefer to participate rather than watch, look for the many golf courses and hiking trails or stroll along the boardwalk at the edge of Lake Ontario.

Toronto holds its own when it comes to shopping - in the financial district downtown, a 15-block underground city houses more than 1,200 stores, restaurants, professional offices and studios, connected by a series of malls.

• Start your adventure at the Eaton Centre, visited by more than 50 million shoppers a year
• Move to the chic Queen Street West area, the sprawling Kensington Market and the exclusive Hazelton Lanes that anchors the upscale Yorkville district.
• Don't forget Chinatown, Corso Italia and the Avenue Road uptown strip where you'll find everything from second-hand leathers to Alaskan diamonds.

Toronto Travels

Using Toronto as a base, the adventurous traveler can make a wide variety of day trips:

• Wild Water Kingdom is 100 acres of Disney-like fun, featuring seven-story speed slides, tube slides and a half-acre tidal wave pool.
• Bowmanville Zoo offers camel and elephant rides, grazing deer and duck ponds - all set in 42 acres of natural parkland.
• Paramount Canada's Wonderland is an exciting theme park with over 200 attractions, 65 hair-raising rides and a 20-acre water park.
• The Group of Seven, an impressive art collection of Canada's foremost painters, is featured at the McMichael Gallery in Kleinburg just north of the city.
• Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington will take your breath away with year-round displays of native and exotic blooms in natural settings in the summer and in cozy greenhouses during the winter.
• Oak Ridges Moraine provides a natural habitat for sensitive and threatened plant and animal species, which can be viewed on more than 125 miles of hiking trails.
• The Bruce Trail is Canada's oldest and longest footpath, featuring the only public access to the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve.