Toronto

East of downtown, the old Gooderham and Worts distillery, once among the largest in the world, has become a car-free quarter of cobbled lanes and red-brick Victorian industrial buildings. The warehouses and malting houses now hold galleries, design shops, chocolate makers, a craft brewery and restaurants, with public sculpture in the open spaces between them. It is one of the best-preserved collections of 19th-century industrial architecture in North America, and film crews use it often as a stand-in for old New York or London.

TipIn November and December the district hosts a popular winter market with lights and stalls. Weekday visits are much calmer than weekend evenings.

A short walk west, the South Market building, which incorporates part of Toronto's 19th-century city hall, is one of the city's great food halls. Downstairs and up, more than a hundred vendors sell cheese, fish, mustards, maple products and baked goods. The classic order is a peameal bacon sandwich: thick slices of cured pork loin rolled in cornmeal, piled into a bun. On Saturdays an early-morning farmers' market sets up in the North Market across Front Street.

TipThe market is closed on Mondays and has shorter hours on some days, so check before you go; Saturday mornings bring the farmers' stalls, but arrive early to beat the crowds.

Ice hockey is close to a national faith, and its shrine sits in an ornate 1885 former Bank of Montreal branch at the corner of Front and Yonge streets, attached to the Brookfield Place complex. Inside are jerseys, sticks and masks from every era, interactive games where you can face virtual shots, and the original bank vault. The highlight is the domed Great Hall, where the Stanley Cup itself is displayed when it is not travelling with the current champions.

Completed in 1976 as a communications tower and for decades the world's tallest freestanding structure, the CN Tower still defines the skyline at 553 m. Glass-fronted lifts climb to the main observation level in under a minute, where a glass floor lets you stand above a sheer drop. Higher still, the SkyPod gives the loftiest view, stretching on clear days across the lake towards the spray of Niagara. The revolving 360 Restaurant turns a full circle about every 72 minutes, and the EdgeWalk lets harnessed visitors walk hands-free around the outside of the main pod, 116 storeys up.

TipBook a timed ticket online and check the forecast; low cloud can hide everything. Late afternoon lets you see the city by day and then lit up after dark.

At the foot of the tower, this large aquarium is a good choice for families and rainy days. A moving walkway carries you through a long acrylic tunnel under the Dangerous Lagoon, with sand tiger sharks, sawfish and sea turtles gliding overhead. Other galleries cover the Canadian Great Lakes, Pacific kelp forests, jellyfish lit in shifting colours and touch pools with rays and horseshoe crabs.

TipWeekends and school holidays are packed; a weekday evening slot is usually quieter. The aquarium sometimes holds adults-only evenings with music.

South of the railway tracks, Queens Quay runs along the waterfront past marinas, beaches and parks. Harbourfront Centre, a cultural campus in former warehouses, has galleries, craft studios where glassblowers and jewellers work in view, a lakeside stage for free summer concerts and a skating rink in winter. Walk west along the boardwalk to the Toronto Music Garden, laid out to echo a Bach cello suite, or east to Sugar Beach, with its pink umbrellas facing a working sugar refinery.

A 15-minute ferry ride from Jack Layton Ferry Terminal, the islands are a car-free chain of parkland, beaches and lagoons that gives the best view of the skyline. Centre Island has gardens and Centreville, an old-fashioned amusement park for children. To the west, Hanlan's Point has a lighthouse and a long beach, part of which is clothing-optional; to the east, Ward's Island is a small community of cottages and gardens with a quieter beach. Bikes can be hired on the islands, and the paths are flat and easy.

TipCity ferries run from the terminal at 9 Queens Quay West; an adult round trip costs $9.57. Peak queues form from about 10am to 3pm heading out and 5pm to 9pm coming back, so buy online and consider the Ward's Island route on summer weekends.

Back on the mainland and north up Bay Street, Toronto's civic square is framed by City Hall, two curved towers designed by Finnish architect Viljo Revell and opened in 1965, which still look strikingly modern. In front, the illuminated Toronto sign is the city's favourite photo spot, and the reflecting pool becomes a free outdoor skating rink in winter. The neighbouring Old City Hall, a Romanesque sandstone pile with a clock tower, makes a striking contrast.

A few blocks west on Dundas Street, the AGO is one of the largest art museums in North America, transformed in 2008 by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, who added a sweeping wooden gallery along the street and a spiral staircase that twists out from the back of the building. The collection is especially strong on Canadian painting, including the Group of Seven and Tom Thomson, Indigenous art, and the world's largest public collection of works by Henry Moore. There are also European old masters and an extensive contemporary wing.

TipThe AGO has offered free or discounted admission for young visitors and annual passes in recent years; check the current terms on its site before you buy a single ticket.

Just west of the gallery, through Chinatown on Spadina Avenue, Kensington Market is a tangle of narrow streets lined with painted Victorian houses turned into vintage shops, cheese and spice stores, bakeries, cafés and cheap food counters. It was first a Jewish market, then shaped by Portuguese, Caribbean, Chinese and Latin American arrivals, and it keeps a scruffy, independent spirit. Look for the murals around Augusta Avenue and the street art of Graffiti Alley, a few minutes south off Queen Street West.

TipOn selected summer Sundays the streets close to traffic for Pedestrian Sundays, with buskers and stalls.

North on the subway to Museum station, the ROM is Canada's largest museum of world cultures and natural history. Its old stone galleries are pierced by the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, the jagged aluminium-and-glass addition by Daniel Libeskind that opened in 2007. Highlights include dinosaur skeletons, a blue whale skeleton, a gallery of First Peoples art and culture, Chinese temple murals and an extensive collection of minerals and gems.

TipThe museum runs a free main-floor programme and hosts adults-only evenings; check opening days before going, as it closes on some Mondays.

Up the hill in the Annex area, Casa Loma is a Gothic Revival castle built between 1911 and 1914 for the financier Sir Henry Pellatt, who lost his fortune not long after moving in. You can wander its grand rooms, secret passages, towers and an 800-foot tunnel to the stables, then stroll the terraced gardens with views back to the downtown skyline. Its theatrical interiors make it a favourite film location and a venue for seasonal events.

TipFrom Dupont subway station, the Baldwin Steps climb the escarpment to the castle; it is a steep but short walk.

On the west side of the city, High Park is Toronto's largest public park, with oak savannah, ravines, Grenadier Pond, sports fields, gardens and a small free zoo with bison and capybaras. It is beloved in spring, when the Japanese cherry trees near the pond bloom, usually for a short spell in late April or early May and drawing large crowds. The rest of the year it is a peaceful place for a walk, a picnic or an open-air play in summer.

TipThe subway stops at High Park station on the northern edge. During blossom season, go early on a weekday.

Begin a Niagara day trip just upstream of the falls at this restored 1905 hydroelectric plant, which ran for nearly a century before closing. Its long generator hall, full of giant machines, explains how Niagara powered the region, and a glass lift drops visitors into the tailrace tunnel, a 670 m passage hewn through rock that ends on a platform at the river's edge beneath the falls. An after-dark show projects light and sound across the hall.

A short stroll north, the Canadian, or Horseshoe, Falls is the largest of the three Niagara waterfalls, a curving wall of water about 50 m high that carries most of the Niagara River's flow. From the railing at Table Rock you stand almost at the brink, close enough to feel the spray and hear the roar. The riverside promenade along the Niagara Parkway gives views of the American and Bridal Veil Falls across the gorge, and at night the falls are lit in colour, with fireworks on many summer evenings.

TipNiagara Parks sells combined passes covering several attractions, which are good value if you plan to see more than two.

Right beside Table Rock, lifts drop around 38 m through the bedrock to tunnels more than a century old. Portals cut in the rock open directly behind the Horseshoe Falls, where you see, hear and feel the water thundering down, and an observation deck at the base puts you face to face with the falls in a cloud of mist. Rain ponchos are provided. It is open year-round, though the lower deck may close in winter when ice builds up.

Further north along the river road, boats leave a dock below Clifton Hill to sail past the base of the American Falls and right into the swirling mist of the Horseshoe Falls basin. It is the most memorable way to grasp the scale of the falls, and you will get soaked despite the poncho. The boats operate from spring to late autumn, depending on ice on the river.

TipCruises are busiest in the middle of summer days; the first sailings of the morning are the quietest.

End the day 25 km north along the scenic Niagara Parkway, where the river meets Lake Ontario at a pretty 19th-century town of clapboard houses, flower baskets and inns. Its main street has the Shaw Festival theatres and Fort George, a reconstructed fort from the War of 1812. The surrounding Niagara Peninsula is Ontario's most important wine region, with dozens of wineries offering tastings, and it is famous for icewine made from grapes frozen on the vine.

TipMany wineries ask you to book tastings ahead, especially on weekends. If you plan to taste, join a tour or hire bikes rather than driving.