Toronto

I have a whole day today to explore Toronto as part of my Niagara Falls tour. My first impression of the city was “a luke warm coke with no frizz”. The city is full of concrete buildings, a little bit messy without a personality. When a local found out I was from Australia, he straight away commented that Toronto is usually compared with Sydney. I was in awe full of puzzlement. There is no way Toronto is comparable with Sydney as Sydney is a really pretty city. However, after giving it much of a thought, the local must be talking about the city being the financial district central of the country, then that’d make sense to compare Toronto. Toronto’s population of 5.5 million is also comparable to Sydney.

With Toronto, you can easily glance over the surface and think that it’s just a city of concrete buildings. However, if you give it a chance, you’ll see some amazing buildings with plenty of characters. Being the financial district, my focus was geared towards the buildings owned by the banks.

Awesome bank buildings

I came across this skycrapper building owned by BMO. It’s a 72 level building that fits 25,000 employees. What is so fascinated about this building is the marble they use all over the exterior and the interior. The marble tha is the finest marble from Italian region of Carrara. Carrara is where Michael Angelo got his marble slab for the infamous Statue of David. 

BMO building - as you can see utilising white marbles from the Italian region of Carrara (same region where Michael Angelo got his marble for the statue of David)

Each marble square (as you can see in the picture some are missing) weighs 160 kg

The banks here in Canada seem to be competing against each other. The RBC (Royal Bank of Canada) building is also fascinating as they coated gold leaf into the windows.

Royal Bank Plaza with gold leaf coated windows

Canada Stock Exchange Building

Toronto Stock Exchance building - where they kept the old with the new

Whenever I get a chance to visit a country, I always try to visit their stock exchance building, their zoo and their chinatown . Canada Stock Exchange is certainly not to be missed. What I like about this building is they kept the original building as they build upwards to accommodate more people and activities. The most interesting part of the building is the decorations on the wall. As you can see below in the picture, it looks like the banker’s hand’s in the worker’s pocket .

Toronto stock exchange building decoration - as you can see the banker's hand is in the worker's pocket

Fairmont Hotel – Hotel York

Fairmont Hotel Toronto

When you travel around Canada, you will notice there are a chain of fairmont hotels. The Fairmont hotels are luxury hotel and in capital cities, they tend to be positioned right across the railway station. These hotels were built by the Railway company so that each travellers can convinently stay overnight during their railway journey. The one in Toronto is called Hotel York. It looks like a castle similar to Chateau Frontenace in Quebec city.  The Queen has her own room there.

Toronto Railway Station

Toronto Railway station is another place of interest. You can go to any region of Canada from this railway station. The building itself is quite interesting but as I look closer to the details inside the station, I noticed they hang all the provincial flags and at each end, they hang the Canadian flag. Each provincial, e.g. Quebec, Ontario, British Columbia, etc has its own flag. The Canada flags at each end shows that its a united country of Canada.

Inside Toronto railway station - provincial flags and Canada flags hung at each end

The Old and New Town Hall

 Canada Old and New Town Hall is next to each other. The old town hall was built in 1898 and is now utilised as a court of justice.

Toronto old town hall with the new one (white building) can be seen behind

I don’t really like the look and feel of the new town hall (well in comparison to the old one). However, the new town hall was built by a finnish architect and the shape of it resembles a human eye.

Mai in front of Toronto Old Town Hall

Underground city stretches 9km - great for winter, people don't need to re-surface outside

Undercover shopping - interesting architecture

Mai in front of Hockey Hall of Fame

Toronto oldest part of neighbourhood

Related posts:

1. Canada – Niagara Express Tour (1000 islands)
2. Canada – Niagara Express Tour (Niagara Falls Day and Night)
3. Canada – Niagara Express Tour (Niagara on the lake town and Vineyards)
4. Canada – Niagara Express Tour (Exploring Niagara Falls by Helicopter)
5. Canada – Niagara Express Tour (Niagara Falls exploration – Maid of the Mist)