dbd33

I don't think even Mel Lastman would deny that it's ugly. The best aspect of the city, the one they use on postcards, makes it look like Pittsburgh. The strengths of the city are the people and the food. The people because they're immigrants and the food because the people brought it. The best way to enjoy Toronto is to close your eyes and enjoy what's happening in your mouth and nose.







(unless you're near the Humber - then close that nose)

Souvy

I've probably never seen the nice bits of TO. My trips seem to confine me to the downtown concrete jungle.

It will be the same in April. Billy Bishop-Royal York-Billy Bishop. That is likely all I will see.

dbd33

You're not looking hard enough.

Before you land, if the weather is clear, you can glimpse the water treatment facility at the bottom of Vic. Park; that's Toronto's architectural highlight. Then you have the ferry ride, that's a bit like a cruise on the Danube. If you look north as you board the shuttle you can see a tenement primarily occupied by people of colour. It's named for Bishop Desmond Tutu; an example of the agonising political correctness and ham handed racial stereotyping that characterises Toronto politics. Bishop Tutu Towers is, of course, a nuclear free zone.

Perhaps, if you didn't take the shuttle, you could walk along the waterfront trail and enjoy the breeze off the lake. Don't swim. Don't paddle. Wash exposed skin thoroughly at the first opportunity.

Pizzawheel

Briefly for work (the theatre & art centre) and one of the lads in the bike club moved there. It's unfairly the poster child for boring new towns, but poster child it is. Sorry!

I'll have baked beans for lunch to "top up" with thunder. London (home city), Manchester (Uni), Gaborone (Botswana, so you don't have to look it up), Lagos (and not the one in Portugal!), PRS (peoples republic of scarberia)

The French learned to say nice things about the occupying Germans too; at least in online chat forums. (foriii? fora????)

I agree but your geography is way off on the east side. The beaches are outside the DVP and would be my fave part of the city. SW Scarbs is nice- loosely south of the railway line from Vic Park out to McCowan: Fallingbrook (beaches with big houses), Birchcliff, Cliffside & Cliffcrest.

OK it was a beautiful summer day I was on the Ducati and looking at the sun shimmering on the lake rather than reflecting off the walmart. :-)
There's not much ambition outside of downtown. TO is still a shy teenager in city terms when due to the commercial boom it should be a confident 30 year old.

Souvy

I take it you don't work for the TO Tourism Board (or whatever).

That ferry amuses me, as does the tunnel. Why not just slap on a box-girder bridge? It's not a big stretch of water FFS!

dbd33

I'm familiar with the Beach due to having lived there for years. It's nice but it's part of Toronto in the way that Harrow is part of London, I'd call it an attractive inner burb rather than part of the city.

colchar

You were there for five hours, how could you possibly develop an informed opinion of an entire city in that short a time?

I have lived just outside of Toronto for much of my life and am no fan of the city myself, but come on...your experience of the city is far too limited to draw any kind of informed conclusions about it.

dbd33

I dunno. I was in Brampton for twenty minutes or so before racing to the highway. I had the same experience in the Mexican bit of Detroit.

Souvy

Depends on the city............

To be fair, though, five hours in Union Station is not going to give anyone much in the way of fond memories.

Shard

What would say is the US city most like Toronto. Often New York is cited, but I think it's most like Chicago because of the lake, and a more Mid-Western mindset.

Pizzawheel

This became enough of a political hot potato when they were planning the tunnel to City Airport- all the protesters insisted it was just an excuse to build a bridge once the budgets for the tunnel came in.

I know what you mean but to me places like Camden Lock are inner burbs as well. Now I've looked up your western extent I think you're saying something different to me- I think High Park and Bloor Village west look seriously nice.

So with our proverbial zillion bucks where would we all live? I'd be on Glen Manor Drive with a view into the ravine.

Oink

Fort Lauderdale, as it has about the same about of Canadians.

Pizzawheel

Yeah, this.

NY is fairly unique in having the island downtown thing going on; same as Lagos, you're either on the island or you're not.

Not many cities have that.

dbd33

Our old receptionist lived exactly there. She moved because it was too far to the subway.

dbd33

Chicago. I get lost there because the lake is in the wrong place and other than that it looks the same.