Toronto is Canada's commercial hub

Toronto is Canada's big, bustling wannabe New York with a Los Angeles streak that asserts itself around about the time of the annual Toronto International Film Festival.

This sprawling, cosmopolitan city of more than 4.5 million people is Canada's commercial hub.

Lying on the banks of Lake Ontario, Toronto has the country's liveliest nightlife, the most cutting edge arts scene, the world's tallest building (the CN Tower) and is speckled with bohemian, multiethnic neighbourhoods as well as large, first-rate parks.

Toronto's Harbourfront with its wide boulevards and lakeside vistas is where most travellers start their explorations of the city. Catching the elevator to the top of the 553-metre-high CN Tower offers spectacular view of Toronto and is the best way to orient yourself.

Culture vultures won't want to miss Toronto's five-floor Royal Ontario Museum - Canada's largest - housing a particularly impressive Asian art collection.

Other prime Toronto attractions include Casa Loma - a stately medieval-style castle in the middle of the city, Ontario Place - a 40-hectare lakeside recreation centre with water attractions, an IMAX theatre and an amphitheatre as well as the Hockey Hall of Fame - a veritable shrine to Canada's favourite sport.

On hot summer days, Torontonians jump the ferry for the three idyllic Toronto Islands. Floating in Lake Ontario, the parklands here make an ideal escape from the city's traffic and humidity.

Toronto experiences sunny and humid summers with temperatures reaching up to 35°C. Its winters (November through to February) are bitterly cold. January is the most frostbitten month with average daytime temperatures hovering around -5°C. Toronto's PATH Underground system offers an escape from the winter chill, with a subterranean network of 1,200 shops and businesses stretching for over 27km.

While wilderness is not exactly a stone's throw from Toronto, Niagara Falls lies only 130km south.

Toronto is serviced by Toronto-Pearson International Airport.