It’s hard to believe that Toronto with only 2.8 million inhabitants is the largest city in such a huge country like Canada.
Over 50% of Toronto inhabitants are immigrants. In 2001 Toronto, Canada received a title for World’s Most Multicultural City, with 150 ethnic groups living within the city. “Toronto” probably comes from an Indian word, which means “Meeting Place”. The city lies on the cost of Ontario Lake, 20% of the city constitute green places – there are 10 trees per each resident. In agglomeration of Greater Toronto Area live 6 million people.
How to get to the downtown from the airport?
First of all find the tourist information in the airport. You will receive not only any kind of information but also get useful city and transportation maps. My funny conversation with the lady from information spot:
Me: Hi, can you tell me the easiest way to get to the city center?
Lady: (giving me weird expression) Which city center?
Me: What do you mean which city center – the old town, center?
Lady: You mean the downtown?!
Me: (smiling back) Ohh, yes… Downtown! Can you tell me how to get to the downtown by the underground?
Lady: Underground???
Me: (little irritated) You know train, tube?
Lady: You mean by subway!!!
Me: Jesus… 🙂 🙂 🙂 Seriously?! 🙂
So now you know that the easiest way to get to the downtown is by UP Express. The trains take you from the airport through Toronto city. It’s possible to buy a ticket in the airport (ticket machines). The train runs every 15 minutes and takes 25 minutes to reach Toronto downtown. There’s even a Wifi on board. Our plan was to reach the old town and take a long walk around the city. There’s probably a lot of interesting galleries and Museums but this time we just wanted to hang around.
Best places to see in Toronto city
There is plenty of city tours – by bus, by boat, by bike or by foot. There are also free public walking tours! The city is very clean, modern and gave me a positive impression, although I heard there was a problem with number of crimes. Toronto has few nice architectural landmarks and major buildings like: famous CN TV Tower, Art Gallery of Ontario, Nathan Philips Square and Gooderham Building.
The original City-TV Station – CN Tower (CHUM tower) – a TV and radio tower (CHUM Limited was a media company located in Toronto) is 553.3 m-high. We went inside for a little sightseeing and I have no idea how did it happen but we landed in the middle of broadcasting! The was a live stream from internal studio. The camera men gave us a sigh to move quietly from this area 🙂 Great start! It reminded me when I was working in communication and had my 5 minutes in TV. It’s a great adventure. The atmosphere and lots of emotions. Unbelievable stress when you have to go live in front of millions of viewers.
