World City Guide

Tours of the City

Walking Tours
Walking tours of Toronto are available from Toronto Footsteps (tel: (416) 483 5483) and A Taste of the World (tel: (416) 923 6813; fax: (416) 532 0554; e-mail: info@torontowalksbikes.com; website: www.torontowalksbikes.com), who also offer bicycle tours. True to its name, A Taste of the World offers the ‘Kensington Foodies Roots Walk’, a three-and-a-half-hour Saturday morning stroll through historic Kensington Market, sampling both the sights and the local delicacies. Tours cost from C$15 (ghost and literary walks) to C$35 (food walk) and are frequently sold out – advance reservation is recommended.

Guided tours of the city’s natural heritage are available from Toronto Field Naturalists (tel: (416) 593 2656; website: www.sources.com/tfn). Architectural walks are available from Unique Views (tel: (416) 531 7770).

There are also a variety of signposted, self-guided walks that wind through the city’s many parks and green spaces. Alternatively, visitors have the option of exploring the vast labyrinth of interconnected shopping areas that underlie downtown’s office towers. The ten-kilometre (six-mile) PATH network (website: www.toronto.ca/path) links shopping, services and entertainment venues between the two branches of the Yonge–University–Spadina subway, south of Dundas Street.

Bus Tours
Grayline Tours (tel: (416) 594 3310; website: www.grayline.ca/toronto) runs hop-on, hop-off tours of the city centre in open-topped double-decker buses and turn-of-the-century trolley buses. A full circuit lasts two hours and costs C$31 (concessions available). The best places for passengers to hop on board are 123 Front Street West (corner of University Street) and the corner of Yonge Street and Dundas Street (visitors should call ahead, seeing as tickets are not available at all stops). Toronto Hippo Tours (tel: (416) 703 4476 or (877) 635 5510; website: www.torontohippotours.com) offers an ‘amphibus’ (amphibious bus) from May to October. Departing from 151 Front Street West (corner of Simcoe Street), the hour-long tour of the city takes in the CN Tower, the SkyDome and Toronto City Hall before entering the water at Ontario Place for a half-hour tour around Toronto’s harbour. The cost is C$35 (concessions available).