Sharing how we spent 24 hours in Toronto in the winter!
I’m so excited that I was finally able to travel to Canada. Canada is one of those places that you assume you’ll get to eventually just because it’s literally connected to the US, but I haven’t really had the opportunity to go there. Also, no one really talks about traveling to Canada. They should though. I had an amazing time visiting the country for the first time, and I’d absolutely love to go back, preferably when it’s warmer.
Before traveling to Montreal, my boyfriend, Kyle, and I spent a full day enjoying the little bits of Toronto that we could fit in. Here is how we spent 24 hours in Toronto during the winter!
AT A GLANCE
Restaurants:
Breakfast: Le Petit Dejeuner
Lunch: Her Chef in Koreatown
Mid-day Snack: Tim Horton’s
Drinks: Steam Whistle Brewing
Dinner: Pure Spirits Oyster House
Things To Do:
St. Lawrence Market
Market Gallery
Toronto sign in Nathan Phillips Square
Toronto Christmas Market
We started the day with breakfast at Le Petit Dejeuner. We were excited because it was a quick five minute walk from our AirBnB. Walking is probably my favorite way to explore a new city.
Le Petit Dejeuner is a cute little spot that serves breakfast, lunch, dinner, and brunch. They also have a bar, and since we were on vaca, we couldn’t resist toasting to a new city we’d get to explore together. I love a good spiked cider, so I got the Hot Apple Schlager, which is hot apple cider mixed with Goldschlager. It was so good! To eat, I had the eggs benny with peameal bacon. I wasn’t really sure what to expect with the peameal bacon, but since I was in Canada, I wanted to try something new. It ended up being so delicious. Kyle had the strawberry Belgian waffle, which was also amazing.
Our next stop was St. Lawrence Market. If you’ve read any of my travel blogs before, you may have realized that Kyle and I love a good market. The St. Lawrence Market was actually ranked number one in North America. It has multiple floors of shops and restaurants. If we weren’t already full, we probably would have eaten there, and we would’ve had a pretty tough time deciding which restaurant to go to.
Within the same building of the St. Lawrence Market is the Market Gallery. They have a rotating museum that focuses on a specific part of Toronto’s history. When we went, the museum displayed the history of beer in the area. To be honest, I don’t think it was worth the money we paid. It’s a tiny museum, literally one room, and I’m kind of surprised they make people pay to see it. It would be a nice add on for your trip to the market, but I wouldn’t recommend paying a fee to explore it. There are other local museums that are worth more of your time and money.
At this point of the trip, we tried and failed to use Toronto’s public transportation. We wanted to take a train into Koreatown. The first stressor was figuring out how to pay. Everyone else had a card, but we couldn’t find where we could pay with cash. We ended up accidentally taking a free train ride for a few stops until we realized we were going in the wrong direction.
The second stressor was the fact that when we figured out where to pay, we realized they only accepted coins and not dollars. We had enough to pay with paper money, but not with coins. When we got that settled, we got on a train on the opposite side of the street, assuming that that train would be going in the correct direction. We (not so) quickly realized we were going in the right general direction, but the train wasn’t going toward our stop.
We ended up getting off the train and having to find a Starbucks to use WiFi and get a Lyft. It was a whole situation, but if you don’t get lost when you’re traveling, what’s the fun in that, right?
There wasn’t as much going on in Koreatown as we had hoped, but we did end of finding a cute place to have lunch. We stopped at Her Chef, which is a cozy little spot with just a few tables. We each ordered a drink, Kyle a local beer and me a glass of Cabernet. Both of us got the wrong drinks. She brought me some white wine, and Kyle spoke up for me and got me some red. Unfortunately, she pulled the red out of the fridge, so I drank a cold Cabernet. Thankfully, the food made up for the drink mishaps. I had the kingkatsu, which is a Japanese-style pork cutlet with a signature sauce that’s served on top of rice. So good, y’all. So good.
No first trip to Toronto is complete without a visit to Nathan Phillips Square. We went to the Square hoping to get a picture with the Toronto sign, which we did, and also do some ice skating, since they usually have that open during the winter. Unfortunately, ice skating wasn’t open whenever we went, but that’s okay because it led us to walking over to Tim Hortons for a warm drink. Even though we have Tim Horton’s in Ohio, I still hadn’t tried it until we were in Toronto. Plus, it’s a Canada thing, so it felt more authentic in a way. I got the candy cane hot cocoa, and we also shared a chocolate donut.
Tim Horton’s was the perfect pick-me-up for our walk over to Steam Whistle Brewing. Even though I’m not a big fan of beer in general, I still enjoy visiting breweries, especially when they have fun things to do. Unfortunately, Steam Whistle didn’t. We still ended up staying and splitting a plate of their German fries, and Kyle had one of the two beers that they had on tap.
So if you know anything about me and the way I love to vacation, you know that I usually have to take a nap if I do any sort of day drinking. After Steam Whistle Brewing (and the biggest struggle to find a Lyft), we ended up back at our AirBnB for a quick snooze.
After our nap, we started our walk over to Pure Spirits Oyster House & Grill to get some oysters for dinner. We ended up walking through the Toronto Christmas Market in the Distillery District, which looked so cute and festive.
Dinner was absolutely incredible. We enjoyed some delicious craft cocktails. We also ate the most amazing oysters ever. Seriously, I love raw oysters, but these ones were just extra special and so good. We also shared some lobster pasta, and it was so delicious, y’all. This was one of my favorite meals of our whole Canada trip.
We ended the day in our pajamas, sipping some hot cocoa in our AirBnB. Even though we only spent a day in Toronto, I still had so much fun. Be on the lookout for my recap of our trip to Montreal!
Have you ever been to Toronto?
