Heading north once again to terrific Toronto
Hockey Hall of Fame on Yonge Street in downtown Toronto
Kristin Emery
The CN Tower stands 1,800 feet and was the world’s tallest freestanding structure until 2007.
Kristin Emery
Toronto’s Kensington Market neighborhood
Photos: Kristin Emery
Downtown Toronto features skyscrapers and the CN Tower.
Trains are an easy option for traveling around Toronto.
Kristin Emery
CN Tower view from 360 The Restaurant
Nighttime view of Toronto from CN Tower’s 360 The Restaurant
Photos: Kristin Emery
Victorian Era homes in Kensington Market section of Toronto
Come on up to Toronto! The border is open again, the drive is short, the people are ever-so-friendly, and the food scene is amazing.
It feels like forever since I made the easy drive north of the border to Toronto. My last visit was five years ago, before COVID-19 restrictions and border closings. Now that Americans and Canadians can once again come and go from one another’s countries fairly easily, it seemed the perfect time to pay our neighbors north of the border a visit.
Getting there
Driving or flying are both easy options between Southwestern Pennsylvania and Toronto. If you’re driving, it’s only about a five-hour trip. Know that you need a passport to get back and forth across the border now. A driver’s license won’t do.
Simply head north on Interstate 79, hang a right at Erie onto Interstate 90 and follow that to Buffalo and the U.S.-Canadian border. Once you cross, continue north for about an hour on Queen Elizabeth Way, which becomes Gardiner Expressway, which will take you right into the heart of the city. We stopped at Niagara Falls (on the Canadian side) for a quick view of the majestic falls, then headed north about 20 more miles to Niagara-On-The-Lake for some wine tasting and an overnight visit. The next morning, we hit Queen Elizabeth Way north for the final hour’s drive and managed to encounter only a little bit of traffic. Toronto has plenty of traffic and it all seems to head downtown on Gardiner Expressway. One tip is to hit town early (before mid-afternoon or the evening rush) and you’ll move along pretty quickly.
We stayed in the heart of downtown at the Residence Inn by Marriott Toronto Downtown/Entertainment District on Wellington Street, which was a great location and right in the heart of everything we wanted to visit.
Toronto is a very walkable city, fairly flat and also filled with buses, streetcars/trams, a subway and the GO train, all of which make getting around town very easy. Our hotel was just a block from the Rogers Center (where the Toronto Blue Jays play baseball) and a few short blocks from the CN Tower and Lakeshore area. Parking can be pricey at hotels, but we found a garage next door, which charged $24 for 24 hours weekdays and even less over the weekend (about half of hotel valet costs).
If you choose to fly, Air Canada flies nonstop from Pittsburgh to Toronto and it takes only about an hour. Pearson Airport sits west of downtown, and you won’t need a car – simply hop the Union Pearson Express from the airport to Union Station downtown for around $25 round trip and it whisks you downtown in 25 minutes.
A couple of tips: You won’t need electricial adapters for phone chargers since U.S. ones work fine here. And the easiest way to manage money is to go cashless using credit cards, but you can exchange money for Canadian currency or withdraw some from an ATM. You’ll also find places and people who welcome U.S. currency. Remember to check with your mobile phone provider pre-trip about roaming charges and fees for using your cellphone in Canada.
Where to begin?
Toronto is such an expansive city. How do you even start to write about it or tell someone where to go or what to do? You could spend weeks exploring Toronto and the surrounding area and you’ll only scratch the surface – especially when it comes to eating and drinking!
Toronto is a vibrant city of almost three million people sitting along the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario and serves as the capital of the province of Ontario (not of the entire country – that’s Ottawa). The skyline is amazing and seems to stretch for miles, dotted with skyscraper after towering condominium building and centered around the iconic CN Tower. Toronto’s nickname is “The 6,” owing to the city’s six metro municipalities that were joined together in 1998.
Once we checked in and got settled, it was time to look around a bit. A fun place to start for Pittsburgh Penguins fans is the Hockey Hall of Fame downtown on Yonge Street. You’ll see the Stanley Cup on display here along with all sorts of memorabilia from Mario Lemieux and other hockey greats. Make your way a few blocks south to the Lakeshore and you’ll find a beautiful urban park that stretches along the waterfront of Lake Ontario. Take a nice stroll or bike ride, hop on a water taxi or book a boat tour or evening cruise here. You can even hop a ferry across the water to Toronto Island Park.
You can’t visit Toronto and not go to the top of the CN Tower. The 1,800-foot observation tower was built in 1976 and stood as the world’s tallest freestanding structure until 2007. CN stands for Canadian National, the railway company that built it. Here’s a pro tip: If you’re going up for a look, go ahead and make a reservation at 360 The Restaurant near the top. You’re required to spend $75 per diner on food there, but the ticket to the observation tower alone costs $43. Why not spend a little more, enjoy an hour or two eating and drinking (great food, by the way) while the restaurant revolves a full 360-degrees around the skyline and – best of all – the reservation gets you to the front of entry and elevator lines with virtually no wait. When we visited, the general admission entry line stretched for around two hours as we neared sunset.
Once you’re back down on the ground, it’s a tough choice which direction to go and what neighborhood to explore. There is no wrong answer! A double decker bus tour is always my go-to when exploring a city for the first time, and the tour here covers a lot of ground. The historic Distillery District will find you sampling beers and spirits surrounded by a Victorian-era neighborhood. Just a short stroll away is the St. Lawrence Market, where you’ll find a foodie’s paradise of Canadian cuisine choices. If you’re looking for some shopping, make your way to the Bloor-Yorkville neighborhood, dotted with upscale, chic boutiques and shops. For a more boho vibe, the Kensington Market is a walkable neighborhood overflowing with vintage clothing shops, local artists, indie boutiques, specialty grocers and just about any variety of ethnic cuisine that you could possibly desire. A ceviche spot sits next to a Vietnamese bistro; bars with craft beers and vegan fare are across from barbecue places. We tried a small Indian place called The Cottage Cheese, which is best known for elevated fare like bread-sealed biryani. It was fantastic, and they offered a three-course meal for $35 CAD (roughly $26 USD).
It seemed as if we had just arrived and started exploring when it already came time for us to head home. With such an easy drive and so much more to explore, I’m sure it won’t be long before we head back north of the border again to terrific Toronto.