Things to See in Toronto: 10 Stops Along the Waterfront to the Sky

The best things to see in Toronto stretch from the Art Gallery of Ontario and Old City Hall downtown to the CN Tower and Rogers Centre by the lake. Each stop mixes real history, from a Finnish architect's 1965 city square to a 19th century bank turned hockey shrine, with details you can check on the ground: dates, architects, prices.

What is the Art Gallery of Ontario and what should I look for inside?

The AGO started small. Established in 1900 as the Art Museum of Toronto and formally incorporated in 1903, the museum was renamed the Art Gallery of Toronto in 1919, before adopting its present name, the Art Gallery of Ontario, in 1966. Its home base is The Grange, a mansion the gallery moved into in 1911, and from there it grew in fits and starts through the 20th century.

The building you see today owes its shape to Frank Gehry, who led a sweeping transformation completed in 2008, the architect who fittingly grew up just blocks away from the building itself. Look for the Galleria Italia, a soaring, glass-and-wood gallery that runs along the museum’s northern facade, offering sweeping views over Dundas Street, and the spiral staircase near the entrance, made of titanium and glass. The gallery’s holdings are enormous: the museum’s permanent collection includes over 120,000 works spanning the first century to the present day. It’s on Dundas Street West, open most days, with adult admission generally in the low twenties in Canadian dollars (check current pricing before you go).

Why is Nathan Phillips Square Toronto's civic heart?

This plaza in front of City Hall forms the forecourt to Toronto City Hall at the intersection of Queen Street West and Bay Street, and is named after Nathan Phillips, mayor of Toronto from 1955 to 1962. It opened in 1965. Phillips pushed hard for a modern city hall to replace the aging Old City Hall next door, and the square was designed by the City Hall’s architect Viljo Revell and landscape architect Richard Strong.

Revell was a Finnish architect who won an international design competition; his curving twin towers still look startling next to the Victorian buildings nearby. Wander the square and you’ll find the Peace Garden, created as a memorial to the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, as well as the commitment of Torontonians to the principle of world peace, plus Henry Moore’s sculpture The Archer, added in 1966. In winter the reflecting pool becomes a public skating rink, free to use, right in the middle of downtown.

What makes Old City Hall one of the things to see in Toronto?

Before there was a new City Hall, there was this one, and it’s worth stopping for. Construction started in 1889 and was completed in 1899, designed by architect Edward James Lennox in the Richardsonian Romanesque style, standing 103.64 metres tall with its tower once the tallest building in Canada from 1899 to 1928.

It was the home of the Toronto City Council from 1899 to 1966 and a provincial court house until 2023, and remains one of the city’s most prominent structures. Stand across Bay Street and look up at the clock tower, which has marked time over downtown Toronto for well over a century. The building was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1984.

What is inside the Hockey Hall of Fame?

Hockey’s shrine has moved around before landing here. The Hall of Fame was originally founded in Kingston, Ontario, in 1943, moved to Toronto in 1958 at Exhibition Place, then to this historic Bank of Montreal building in 1993. That bank building itself is a landmark: completed in 1885, the building has two fine monumental facades with an impressive entrance bay between them. It served as a working bank until 1982.

Inside, the big draw is simple: you can walk up and photograph the actual Stanley Cup. Female hockey players have also been included since 2010, and the interactive shooting and goaltending simulators are popular with kids and adults alike. It sits on Front Street West at Yonge, a short walk from Union Station.

How old is Union Station and why does it matter?

Union Station is Toronto’s grand front door, and it’s the third station to carry the name on nearby ground. Built between 1914 and 1920 in the Beaux-Arts style during the First World War, it was the Prince of Wales, Prince Edward, who officially opened it to the public in 1927. Prime ministers and dignitaries attended the opening.

It’s actually the 3rd Union Station in Toronto: the first opened in 1858, and the second was built on the same site as the first in 1873. Step inside the Great Hall today and look up at the vaulted ceiling and the row of massive columns, a scale meant to impress arriving travellers a century ago and still does.

What can you catch at Scotiabank Arena?

This arena has changed names but not its role as Toronto’s sports and concert hub. Groundbreaking was in February 1997, with the opening hockey game on February 20, 1999, the Toronto Maple Leafs vs the Montreal Canadiens, and the opening concert on February 22, 1999, by The Tragically Hip. The site has history of its own too: the Postal Delivery Building on the site was commissioned by the Federal government in 1938, designed by architect Charles Dolphin and completed in 1940.

The facility was renamed from Air Canada Centre to Scotiabank Arena effective July 1, 2018 due to a change in sponsorship. It’s home ice for the Maple Leafs and home court for the Raptors, and it sits right next to Union Station, connected by an underground passage.

What will you find at Roundhouse Park?

Tucked beside the CN Tower, this park is an open-air railway museum. This public park offers a number of preserved exhibits: roundhouse and turntable, coaling tower, water tower, signal tower, small railway station and several railway cars and locomotives including a 4-8-4 Northern-type steam locomotive.

The roundhouse itself was built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the 1920s to service steam locomotives, and it’s a rare survivor of Toronto’s old rail yards, known as the Railway Lands, that once covered this whole stretch of the waterfront. Walking through here before or after the tower gives you a sense of what stood on this ground before the glass and steel arrived.

What lives inside Ripley's Aquarium?

This aquarium opened in 2013 at the base of the CN Tower and quickly became one of downtown’s most visited attractions. It’s home to 13,500 species of sea creatures from habitats around the world. The moving walkway through the shark tank, part of the Dangerous Lagoon exhibit, is the moment most visitors remember.

Located at 288 Bremner Blvd, at the base of the CN Tower, it’s open from 9am to 6pm, with extended hours on weekends and peak season from 9am to 9pm. Admission runs around $30 per person, though prices vary by season and age.

When was the CN Tower built and how tall is it?

The CN Tower has defined the Toronto skyline for half a century. It was built in 1976 by the Canadian National Railway on land it already owned, and consists mainly of concrete, serving telecommunications purposes. Before it went up, the tower was meant to prove that Canadian engineers could beat interference problems caused by the city’s growing skyscrapers.

Ride the glass elevator to the LookOut level and, on a clear day, look east: you will see on the other side of the tower the many railway lines that run along Lake Ontario, a reminder that this whole district was once rail yards. Our other piece, Fun Facts About Toronto: 9 Surprising Stories From the CN Tower to the Ice Rink, digs into some of the odder tower trivia if you want more.

What is Rogers Centre and what makes its roof special?

Rogers Centre is best known for one engineering trick: a roof that opens. It’s a retractable roof stadium in downtown Toronto, situated at the base of the CN Tower near the northern shore of Lake Ontario, opened in 1989 on the former Railway Lands, and is home to the Toronto Blue Jays of Major League Baseball.

Launched in 1989 under the name SkyDome before Rogers bought the rights in 2005, the stadium has hosted plenty besides baseball. It was also the original home of the Toronto Raptors, who played there from November 1995 to February 1999, while the Air Canada Centre, later renamed Scotiabank Arena, was being planned and built. Between 2022 and 2024 the stadium underwent renovations to its sports facilities and hospitality areas, a good excuse to look for what’s changed if you last visited years ago.

Where	Downtown Toronto, from the Art Gallery of Ontario on Dundas Street West to Rogers Centre on the waterfront
Best season	Spring through fall for outdoor stretches between stops, though the CN Tower, aquarium and Hockey Hall of Fame work year round
Cost	Varies by stop: Ripley's Aquarium runs around $30 per person, CN Tower and AGO tickets separate, Roundhouse Park and Nathan Phillips Square are free
How long	Allow a full day on foot to walk the route and go inside two or three of the paid attractions

Questions people ask about Toronto