6 Best Sights in Toronto, Ontario

The AGO is hard to miss: the monumental glass and titanium facade designed by Toronto native Frank Gehry hovering over the main building is a stunning beauty. Just south of the gallery in Grange Park you'll find visitors of all ages climbing in and around Henry Moore's Large Two Forms sculpture. Inside, the collection, which had an extremely modest beginning in 1900, is now in the big leagues, especially in terms of its exhibitions of Canadian paintings from the 19th and 20th centuries. Be sure to take a pause in the light and airy Walker Court to admire Gehry's baroque-inspired spiral staircase.

The Canadian Collection includes major works by the members of the Group of Seven (a group of early-20th-century Canadian landscape painters, also known as the Algonquin School), as well as artists like Cornelius Krieghoff, David Milne, and Homer Watson. The AGO also has a growing collection of works by such world-famous artists as Rembrandt, Warhol, Monet, Renoir, Rothko, Picasso, Rodin, Degas, Matisse, and many others. The bustling Weston Family Learning Centre offers art courses, camps, lectures, and interactive exhibitions for adults and children alike. Free tours (daily 11 to 3 and Wednesday and Friday evening at 7) start at Walker Court. Savvy travelers can book a free visit online on Wednesday evenings, between 6 and 9.

The Georgian mansion of Sir William Campbell, the sixth chief justice of Upper Canada, is now one of Toronto's best house museums. Built in 1822 in another part of town, the Campbell House was moved to this site in 1972. It has been restored with elegant early-19th-century furniture, and knowledgeable guides detail the social life of the upper class. Don't overlook the Lost & Found garden exhibit, salvaged from heritage buildings.

The design for Toronto's modern city hall, just across the way from the Old City Hall building, resulted from a 1956 international competition that received 520 submissions from architects from 42 countries. The winning presentation by Finnish architect Viljo Revell was controversial—two curved towers of differing height—but logical: an aerial view of City Hall shows a circular council chamber sitting like an eye between the two towers that contain office space. Revell died before his masterwork was opened in 1965, but the building has become a symbol of the thriving metropolis. A remarkable mural within the main entrance, Metropolis, was constructed by sculptor David Partridge from 100,000 nails.

Annual events at City Hall include November's Cavalcade of Lights celebration, featuring fireworks and live music amid the glow of more than 525,000 lights illuminated across both the new and old city halls.

In front of City Hall, the 9-acre Nathan Phillips Square (named after the mayor who initiated the City Hall project) has become a gathering place for everything from royal visits to protest rallies, picnic lunches, and concerts. The reflecting pool is a delight in summer, and even more so in winter, when it becomes a skating rink. The park is also home to a Peace Garden for quiet meditation and Henry Moore's striking bronze sculpture The Archer.

Toronto is filled with back alleys and laneways, most of which are not very nice to look at, but Graffiti Alley is a vibrant amateur spray paint gallery. Running behind Queen West from Spadina to Portland Street, the alleyway is filled with colorful work from local graffiti writers and gets a constant stream of gawkers and photographers dodging garbage and recycling bins to see the art. It's become such an institution that its former nickname is now its official street name, with a street sign and everything.

Opened in 1899, and used until 1965 when the new City Hall was built across the street, the old municipal building now operates solely as a courthouse. This imposing building was designed by E. J. Lennox, who was also the architect for Casa Loma and the King Edward Hotel. Note the huge stained-glass window as you enter. The fabulous gargoyles above the front steps were apparently the architect's witty way of mocking certain turn-of-the-20th-century politicians; he also carved his name under the eaves on all four faces of the building. The building has appeared in countless domestic and international TV shows and feature films.

The part of Spadina Avenue (pronounced spa-dye-nah) that runs through Chinatown, from Dundas Street to Queen Street, has never been chic. For decades it has housed a collection of inexpensive stores, import-export wholesalers, ethnic food stores, and eateries, including some first-class, plastic-tablecloth Chinese restaurants. Each new wave of immigrants—Jewish, Chinese, Portuguese, East and West Indian, South American—has added its own flavor to the mix. While changes in the neighborhood are heralded by modern bubble-tea shops and traditional northern and southern Chinese cuisine expanding past Cantonese mainstays, the basic bill of fare is still bargains galore: yards of remnants piled high in bins, designer clothes minus the labels, and the occasional rock-and-roll nightspot or late-night greasy spoon. A streetcar line runs down the wide avenue to Front Street.