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The Royal Ontario Museum features on most Toronto itineraries. While the city is filled with museums, this is the museum to check out if you’ve only got time for one. Affectionately referred to as the ROM, the Museum opened in 1914 and provides a multifaceted array of exhibits that run the spectrum of human civilisation and the natural world. With galleries spanning over 3 main levels (there’s actually 4 if you include the temporary exhibitions), the Royal Ontario Museum is the largest museum in Canada. Its instantly recognisable today, thanks to its modern Crystal structure, which bursts out from the entrance of the original building. Since its the most visited museum in the country, you may as well add to those numbers on your Toronto trip.
You could spend the better part of a day doing a comprehensive tour of the Royal Ontario Museum. I didn’t have enough time to do that when I was in the city. In this post, I’m hoping to give you an overview of the ROM’s permanent galleries so you can choose which parts you want to focus on during your visit.
First of all, be prepared for crowds when you visit the Royal Ontario Museum. I visited on a weekday afternoon in the middle of the summer holidays. It was also raining. Needless to say, the ROM was PACKED. While I wasn’t able to as I had dedicated my early morning hours to other attractions, I’d highly recommend getting to the Museum around opening time for the best odds of seeing it without too many crowds. If you do this, go to level two FIRST. Its where the dinosaurs are, and therefore thats where most people go.
Also, save time and book your tickets in advance. When I arrived, there was really long line for people wanting to purchase museum tickets. You can buy your tickets on the official website, but if you’re going to be in Toronto for a few days and checking out a number of the city’s attractions, buy the Toronto CityPass instead – it’ll save you money in the long run. For more details, visit the CityPass website. You’ll need to choose your day to visit the Museum beforehand if you use the CityPass, but you can do it moments before you go in.
With so much to see inside, I highly recommend taking a guided highlights tour. Running multiple times through the day, you’ll see some of the best parts of the museum, which will help you decide where you want to spend more time. They meet in the entrance hall. My tour started in the Canadian exhibit, went up to the dinosaurs and ended in the hall of ancient civilisations and my guide was really knowledgeable.
When you enter the Museum, you’ll pass through the main entrance on the first floor. The first thing you’ll see is the massive skeleton of a dinosaur. Its not a t-rex or a triceratops, or any other dinosaur you’ve heard of though. This gigantic behemoth was called the Futalognkosaurus. Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but there’s no doubting how impressive of a way seeing its skeleton is to start your journey through time. The huge herbivore is one of the largest dinosaurs ever found and lived in Argentina over 80 million years ago. Its notable for being found in a relatively complete fossil form. I didn’t know this before my visit, but most dinosaur fossils contain very few remaining bones, so scientists have to piece the rest together to create a realistic image of the dinosaur. Futalognkosaurus bucked that trend, with over 70% of the skeleton in tact on its discovery.
Beyond the entrance to the Museum, you’ll pass into the Currelly Gallery, which serves as a main hall. From here, you can head upstairs, but for now we’ll stay on the ground, where part of Museum’s World Culture focus comes into view.
One of my favourite galleries in the Royal Ontario Museum is the First Peoples Gallery. After all, being in Canada, I wanted to learn about its local history. The gallery contains over a thousand pieces of artwork and cultural heritage that gives you a real insight into the customs and heritage of the first Canadians. The objects on display here provide a wide ranging look at traditional First People life, including displays on travel, family life, spiritual beliefs and more. There’s totems and traditional wear and a whole lot more. One of my favourite displays in this section was the assortment of bark canoes that tribes used to traverse the waters of their sprawling homeland.
On the opposite side of the Currelly Gallery, you’ll be transported across the globe to East Asia, where the Museum focuses on Chinese (and to a less prominent degree Korean) culture. As someone that has always been fascinated by Chinese customs and history, this was another part of the Museum that I found really interesting. The Chinese collection covers almost 10,000 years of history and is actually ranked in the top ten collections of Chinese artefacts outside of China. The objects on display range from prehistoric times all the way to the Qing Dynasty of the 20th Century. Did you know that the Chinese were responsible for the development of paper, gunpowder, porcelain and even the compass? You will after visiting this gallery.
While the Korean collection is smaller, here you’ll learn how the Koreans were the first in the world to develop the woodblock text printing system and other aspects of their historical legacy.
There’s tons to see in these exhibits, but if I had to pick only one thing to see, it would easily be the spectacular reconstruction of the Imperial Palace Hall from Beijing’s Forbidden City. One day I’ll make it to the real thing!
When you go up to the ROM’s second floor, you’ll be leaving the realm of human history behind for a bit. The second floor is almost entirely dedicated to earth’s natural history, and the myriad of species that have lived on our planet over the course of time. While the Natural History Galleries can be broadly grouped together, there’s a number of distinct themes here, so we’ll continue our tour of the Royal Ontario Museum by breaking down the main ones.
The ROM’s Biodiversity Galleries explore life on earth, both today and from times long past. In this part of the Museum, there are tons of taxidermic specimens on display, covering different of animals from various parts of the planet. You’ll see a tiger, a polar bear, a rhino and everything else in between, while learning about the various adaptations that allow them to survive in the wild, and the important role they play in their ecosystems. The impact of humans on the environment is also a major theme in this part of the museum, as the information pulls no punches on the devastating impact human behaviour has had on numerous species, some of which have become endangered or extinct.
While technically a separate exhibit, the Gallery of Birds is adjacent to this section, and contains over a hundred species of birds displayed in full flight. Its one of Canada’s most comprehensive bird collections (I’m sensing a theme here at the Royal Ontario Museum).
One of my favourite parts of the Biodiversity displays though is the themed diorama of a Canadian woodland in the Fall, filled with local wildlife such as deers and bears.
Linked to the Biodiversity halls but deserving of its own mention is the Royal Ontario Museum Bat Cave. Sorry Bruce Wayne, its not your lair. The Bat Cave is an incredibly cool immersive exhibit where you’ll actually walk through a replicated version of St Clair Cave in Jamaica. The exhibit came about as a result of fieldwork carried out by ROM scientists in 2011 and is a really unique way of putting this habitat on display for all to see. The “cave” is filled with limestone formations, dim lighting and of course, the bats. Many of them. Don’t worry, they’re not real, but the cave contains over 800 models of bats (you think that’s a lot – the real thing contains over 50,000!). Whatever you do, don’t miss the Bat Cave on your tour of the Royal Ontario Museum.
This is the definitely the most crowded part of the Museum. These two halls focus on the massive species that ruled the earth in a time period millions of years ago. Those species were of course, the dinosaurs, and subsequently the megafauna (think mammoths, sabre-tooth tigers et al).
Everyone wants to see dinosaurs when they come to a natural history museum, so while its packed, you should definitely spend some time in their hall. If you thought the Futalognkosaurus in the lobby was huge, wait until you see the 27 metre long Barosaurus – one of only three fully assembled skeletons of this massive dinosaur in the entire world! You’ll also come across the usual suspects here – Tyrannosaurus Rex, Stegosaurus, Parasaurolophus and more. Unleash your inner palaeontologist as you inspect the fossils and replicas throughout one of the world’s most comprehensive dinosaur collections.
Following the extinction of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, the megafauna came into being. In this adjacent hall you’ll see some of these species. While you’ll recognise some right away (thank Ice Age for that kids), there’s others you may have never heard of, such as the appropriately named Torontocerous, a giant deer that called the Toronto area its home a very long time ago.
The Dawn of Life Gallery is one of the newer additions to the Natural History halls of the Royal Ontario Museum. Unlike many of the galleries that you can explore in any order you see fit, this one follows a distinct pathway, taking you through the epic journey of earth’s creation and the evolution of life over the course of more than 4 billion years. Its the first exhibit of its kind in North America, and my tour guide spoke very highly of its addition to the Museum.
While I didn’t have time to go through this gallery comprehensively, it really provides a detailed look through time. There’s animations, fossils and even hands-on exhibits where you can learn about Canada’s rich fossil paleontological history and the technologies used today to understand what came so many, many years before us.
There’s a few other galleries on the second floor of the Royal Ontario Museum that are worth a quick stop. Directly across from the Dawn of Life, you’ll find the Earth’s Treasures Hall, which is all about rocks, meteorites and beautiful gemstones spanning over 4.5 billion years of history. Among other samples, you’ll find a giant pure gold coin (worth a lot more than a Canadian dollar!) and the spectacular purple interior of an amethyst geode.
Rather strangely (and basically at odds with the rest of the floor’s theming), there’s also a small gallery of Toy Soldiers on this level. This exhibit hosts a collection of soldier figurines that were donated to the ROM back in 1991 by Henry NR Jackman, a former Lt Governor of Ontario.
The third floor of the Royal Ontario Museum picks back up right where the first floor left off – back to the history of human civilisation. There’s an extremely large collection on this level, spanning centuries across many regions of the globe. As you duck in and out of the various galleries, don’t miss the stunning Byzantine style mosaic over the ceiling of the Eaton Court entrance hall. Made from carefully crafted venetian glass, it contains symbols across cultures from all around the world.
I’ve grouped a number of the halls together here to refer to the highlight of the ROM’s third level. This area is made up of the Museum’s Egyptian, Roman and Greek collections (with a bit of Cyprus, Byzantium, Nubia and the Aegean mixed in). Of these sections, I found the Egyptian gallery to be the most fascinating. No matter how many times I see them, I can’t get enough of the Ancient Egyptian sarcophaguses and hieroglyphics. There’s even a full scale reconstruction of the 2nd century Tomb of Kitines that you can step inside. There’s over 5,000 years of history in this gallery alone.
When you’re finished learning about the Ancient Egyptian afterlife, spend some time with the Emperors of Ancient Rome. This gallery houses the largest Roman collection in Canada. You’ll see busts and sculptures of all the most prominent Romans and even see a collection of coins each bearing the image of a different ruler.
When you make your way to Ancient Greece, you’ll come across an impressive scale replica of the Acropolis in Athens, further depictions of deities, and of course, the classical Greek tapestry art (think the muses from Hercules).
With so many artefacts in these halls, I only barely scratched the surface on my visit.
The Middle East gallery takes you right to the cradle of human civilisation. At the meeting point of the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers, this is where ancient societies first flourished. In these halls, you’ll see relics from civilisations such as the Assyrians, Babylonians, Sumerians and more. One of the more notable displays here is the Lion facade from the Babylonian Palace of King Nebuchadnezzar II, creator of the legendary Tower of Babel.
Adjacent to this gallery is the section dedicated to the Indian subcontinent and its surroundings regions. With objects spanning across the South Asian region, here you’ll gain an insight into the origins of Buddhism as well as more contemporary art depictions. The gallery is especially significant due to Toronto’s significant South Asian population.
The ROM’s collection of objects from the Indigenous peoples of Africa, the Americas and Oceania is an excellent overview of the various cultural and spiritual lives of these different groups of people from distinctive regions of the world. Broken up into a number of sub-sections, you can see artefacts from civilisations ranging from the warriors of Mesoamerica, to the island tribes throughout Polynesia. Separate to all these historical objects and costumes is the centrepiece at the gallery’s entrance. The massive Straying Continents wall sculpture welcome guests into the gallery and was specifically created for the Museum by the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui. At 12 by 5 metres, its worth stopping to take this unique display in.
The Royal Ontario Museum also contains a renowned collection of European objects, icons, artwork and furnishings. Taking you on a time warp from the Middle Ages to the 20th century, in this gallery you’ll learn all about the innovations and developments that changed European lives throughout history. There’s lots of different sections in this gallery, but the one I enjoyed the most contained an assortment of rooms done up from different historical periods. It provided a way to visualise the everyday lives of different eras as civilisation flourished and progressed from humble beginnings.
With so much to see at the Royal Ontario Museum, there’s no way you’ll get to see everything on a single visit. The description I’ve given you should definitely seem overwhelming and you’ll feel rushed if you cram it all in. With that said, hopefully this post has given you an idea of what areas you’re most interested in. Focus on them on your visit, and you’ll get a lot out of your trip. If you’ve been to the ROM, let me know all about your favourite gallery or display.
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The CN Tower stands high above the city of Toronto. Its the defining feature of the city’s skyline, and it has even been recognised as one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World (as named by the American Society of Civil Engineers). It used to be the tallest free standing structure in the world too. While it lost that distinction in 2007, its still an iconic landmark and simply a must when in Toronto. Its not like you can really avoid it – you’ll be able to see the CN Tower pretty much anywhere in the city. There’s a difference between seeing it from street level versus actually going up into the tower though. In this post, I’ll give you an idea of what to expect on a trip to the CN Tower.
The CN Tower peaks at some 553 metres above Toronto. Construction on the tower was completed in 1975 by the Canadian National Company (hence the CN), following the skyscraper boom of the 1960s. It took 1,537 workers a period of 40 months to complete the structure. The tower’s primary purpose was to transmit radio and television waves (existing towers at the time were not tall enough to prevent signals being bounced off the city’s newer buildings) and it still carries out these functions today. Since it was opened to the public on June 26, 1976 however, the CN Tower also become a unique Toronto landmark with people travelling all over the world to see the structure, making it a boom to the city’s tourism industry.
In 1995, the CN Tower was sold to the Canada Lands Company, a company which specialises in attractions of national interest, Over the years since, the tower has undergone a number of renovations, continuing to provide a modern and vibrant experience for its guests. At over 2 million guests a year, it sees a lot of them too!
The first thing you need to know before you go to the CN Tower is to BOOK YOUR TICKET IN ADVANCE. Seriously, you don’t want to get to the bottom of the tower and have to wait around for hours to be able to go up (or worse yet, be told the day’s tickets have sold out). You can book your ticket directly from the official website and choose whether you just want to go for general admission, or pay extra for the other attractions within the tower.
If you’re going to a number of Toronto attractions during your stay in the city, check if they’re covered by the CityPass. This awesome combo ticket will allow you to visit some of the city’s best attractions within a 9 day window. You’ll save significant money all up if you do this. Note that if you buy the CityPass, you should log into your account a week or so before your visit to reserve a time to go up the tower.
On arrival, line up around your admission time and after a short queue you’ll pass through a metal detector checkpoint. From there, its off to the elevators which whisk you to a height of 342 metres in less than a minute. Welcome to the main observatory level.
Once you reach the main observatory level, grab a spot by the windows (which cover all the walls) and take in the views. They’re incredible to say the least. I’ve been to many of these types of towers around the world, but I never get sick of the experience of seeing a city from high above. You’ll have every opportunity to go photo crazy up here. While the views are stunning at all times of day, if you aim to visit the CN Tower right before sunset, you’ll be rewarded with the best of both worlds – the city by day and night – as well as witnessing a panoramic sunset from the sky.
After spending some time admiring the views, you can check out a few of the exhibits in the main observatory that go into the tower’s history. There’s nothing groundbreaking here, but it gives you the chance to learn a bit more about the massive structure. You should also stop by the glass bottomed floor. Don’t worry, its reinforced, so stand, dance and jump away, all while taking in the heart-stopping view back down to the ground beneath.
There is normally also an Outdoor Terrace as part of the main observatory. When I visited the tower recently however it was closed for refurbishment. The terrace appears to still be under development at the time of writing.
While the main observatory provides stunning views in itself, if you want to go up even higher, you can pay extra to visit the SkyPod. The SkyPod is the highest observation point in the Western Hemisphere and is 447 metres up above the city. Thats 33 floors higher than the main observation level! At this height, you’re in a much smaller enclosed area, and apparently you can even feel the wind causing the tower to sway up here.
I didn’t go up to the SkyPod on my trip to the CN Tower. If you want to go up there, you’ll have to pay an additional fee You can either buy a ticket including SkyPod admission before your visit ($53.00 CAD), or you can upgrade your ticket at the observatory for a cost of $10.00 CAD. Since there’s no financial advantage to booking the SkyPod in advance, I’d probably just book the main ticket and then upgrade on site if you want to go up higher – although you’ll probably have to contend with a wait to go up (there’s worse places to wait around!).
Most people I’ve spoken to say that the SkyPod isn’t that much better than the main observatory. That said, you should try it for yourself if you’re interested.
The EdgeWalk is definitely not for the light hearted! This experience takes your OUTSIDE the CN Tower, with only a harness securing you as you circle the tower’s exterior on the 116th floor. Its the world’s highest hands-free walk. I didn’t do the EdgeWalk, but if you’re interested, this is something you need to book in advance. Tickets start at $195.00 CAD per person (though on peak days it goes up to $225.00 CAD) and you have to be over the age of 13 to participate. You’ll need to arrive 30 minutes before your scheduled time so that you can run through a safety briefing. Once you’re out in the fresh air, you’ll embark on a half hour walk around the tower’s observatory. All up, you should allow about 90 minutes for this once in a lifetime experience.
For more information on the EdgeWalk, and to purchase your tickets, check out the official website HERE.
If you’re looking for a fancy restaurant to celebrate a special occasion, the CN Tower has you covered. Home to the world’s highest wine cellar, the 360 Restaurant has a rotating dining floor, so you’ll be able to see the entire city from all angles throughout the course of your meal (provided you take longer than 72 minutes!). You definitely need to book in advance if you want to make a reservation. The restaurant is quite expensive, but if you do dine here, you’ll get free admission to the tower’s main observatory after your meal (with a minimum spend of $75 CAD per guest). As for the menu, you can expect some of Canada’s finest flavours, ranging from steak to seafood.
You can order a la carte, or choose the prix fixe (2 or 3 course) option. I can’t comment on the food here because I haven’t tried it, but reviews tend to be extremely favourable.
As you can see, there’s plenty to do at the CN Tower. It can be a relatively pricey experience (or an extremely pricey one if you decide to splurge on the add-ons), but visiting is essential on a trip to Toronto. Tell me all about your CN Tower experiences! For those that haven’t been, I hope this guide has given you more of an idea of what to expect high above Toronto.
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