By Ellen Creager / Detroit Free Press
TORONTO—This evolving city just keeps getting more interesting. More to do. More to see. More sophistication.
Toronto, like New York, has pricey hotels, restaurants and attractions. But in late summer and early fall, you’ll see some price breaks, depending on when you go. This city of 6 million people just finished hosting the gigantic Pan American Games, drawing 10,000 athletes and 250,000 tourists from as far away as Brazil (the related Parapan Am Games ran from August 7 to 15).
Headed into fall, this busy city will not take a breather from that massive event.
Festivals, shows, galleries, museums, hotels and restaurants are running full tilt.
AT THE MUSEUMS
AT the Royal Ontario Museum, the exhibit Pompeii: In the Shadow of the Volcano is by itself worth a trip to Toronto. The museum is best known for its incredible dinosaur collection. But this special show contains 200 artifacts from the ruins of Pompeii, borrowed from Italy’s historic collections in Naples and Pompeii. It has beautiful mosaics, sobering plaster casts of the dead and some scandalous sex sculptures that evoke Pompeii’s hedonistic lifestyle. Most poignant, however, are the small reminders of everyday life—spoons, glass bottles, an emerald necklace—the ordinary things lost as the volcano erupted in 79 AD, burying the city under nearly 20 feet of ash. The exhibit runs through January 3 (www.rom.on.ca).
At the Bata Shoe Museum, “Standing Tall” is a new feature about men’s shoes with heels. Containing shoes from flashy dressers such as Louis XVI and Elton John, it stacks up as a curiosity item. Still, by far my favorite part of this gem of a museum is its core “Footwear through the Ages” exhibit. It explains 4,500 years of shoe history, with amazing shoes from ancient times to the present day, everything from tiny Chinese slippers to the first flip-flop. Worth walking a mile in your shoes to see (www.batashoemuseum.ca).
Finally, on the northeast edge of the city, check out the Aga Khan Museum: This serene museum that just opened in 2014 showcases a fine collection of Islamic art and artifacts.
A current exhibit pairs real historic carpets from the Middle East with Dutch paintings that used similar carpet imagery (www.agakhanmuseum.org). OK, I lied. Here are two more museums that should be on your list: Art Gallery of Ontario and the Gardiner Museum of ceramics. But who’s counting? Toronto has more than 125 galleries and museums to browse.
FIVE UPCOMING FESTIVALS
If you are drawn by Toronto’s festivals, late summer and early fall feature everything from the quirky to the upscale. The Scotiabank BuskerFest draws a crazy multitude of 170 of the best street performers in the world to Yonge Street (from August 27 to 30, www.torontobuskerfest.com). A couple weeks later, international celebrities will congregate at the sophisticated Toronto International Film Festival, the biggest film festival in North America, from September 10 to 20 (https://tiff.net).
Foodies will savor the Toronto Food and Wine Festival from September 18 to 20 (www.torontofoodandwine.com). The Scotiabank Nuit Blanche, an all-night contemporary arts festival, is on October 3 (www.scotiabanknuitblanche.com/). And the big Art Toronto: Toronto International Art Fair is from October 23 to 26 (www.arttoronto.ca).
AT THE THEATER
MANY tourists can’t think of visiting Toronto without seeing a show.
In town? The hit Kinky Boots runs through September 27, while Newsies closes on August 30. This fall visitors can see predictable hits Motown the Musical (from September 22 to October 25), the enduring Toronto musical phenomenon Phantom of the Opera (from December 8 to January 23, 2016), and Peter Pan (from November 27 to January 3, 2016).
Beyond that look for Cinderella (from December to January 2016) and the plays Gaslight (from January to February 2016), and Judas Kiss (from March to April 2016). Meanwhile, Cirque du Soleil’s iconic show Varikai is in town from September 2 to 6. For all theater ticket information, see www.toronto-theatre.com.
If you want to tie your visit to a big-name performance, singers in Toronto this fall include Taylor Swift on September 2 and 3 and Madonna on October 5 and 6.
WALKING AROUND
Happily all the construction that plagued downtown Toronto for the past four years is finished. It’s now enjoyable to walk on Front Street, strolling from old town’s fascinating Lawrence Market to the Hockey Hall of Fame and all the way to the CN Tower. It’s a great way to wrap up a weekend in Canada’s largest city.
If you plan on making a trip to Toronto from the US: Remember, you cannot just waltz into Canada. Travelers must have a passport or enhanced driver’s license to cross the border between the US and Canada. Those under age 16 can use a birth certificate.
***For more on Toronto hotels, restaurants, attractions and packages, see www.seetorontonow.com, the Tourism Toronto portal for visitors.
Image credits: Ellen Creager/Detroit Free Press/TNS