We booked an independent walking tour (through Viator) of Old Toronto and the St. Lawrence Market. We had a beautiful day and enjoyed walking through the neighborhood. The first picture below is one of the streets lined with colorful chairs where pedestrians could take a break, check their phones or just people watch.

The next picture is one we saw a little later in the tour and has a very unique story. It is a piece of street art “hidden” in an alley located at Church and the Esplanade. It is by an artist who uses the name Bansky. His true identity is still in question. His art career began in the 1990s in England where he did street graffiti. While his work was initially thought of as vandalism, it has become highly sought after art. Bansky was in Toronto in 2010 and there was speculation that he had created seven paintings around the city. This was later confirmed by his publicist. Of the seven, only the one at Church and the Esplanade has survived untouched. It has been protected with a piece of heavy plastic. Bansky is probably best known as the artist who built a shredder into the frame of one of his works, Girl With a Balloon. Immediately after being sold at an auction, the painting partially shredded itself. This was likely a publicity stunt. Regarding the picture we saw, it is truly hidden. If our tour guide hadn’t pointed out the painting, we would have walked by the alley and never seen it.

We saw another example of street art on the Gooderham Building, also known as the Flatiron Building. The Flatiron Mural was painted by Derek Besant, a Canadian artist. It is a picture of the Perkins Building, which is directly across the street from the painting. Besant used a technique called the trompe-l’oeil which gives the illusion of the painting being three dimensional. And indeed, the edges of the painting appear to be blowing in the wind.

The Gooderham dates back to 1892 and has been designated as a historic building by the Toronto Historic Board. It is an iconic building in Toronto and today serves as an office building. The term “flatiron” may be because the building’s shape resembles a household iron. The building was constructed in this shape because the land upon which it was built was triangular. Several buildings with similar shapes are known as flatiron buildings; the most famous one is in New York City.

Just behind the Gooderham Building is Berczy Park. We walked through the park to see the Berczy Park Dog Fountain. The fountain has three tiers with 27 dogs “spewing” water. Their attention is focused on a bone at the very top of the fountain. In addition to the dogs, there is one cat (see the third picture) whose focus is on a lamp post not in my pictures. At the top of the lamp post are two bird sculptures that have captured the cat’s interest. The fountain was installed in 2016 and is popular with both people and their pets.

Another of our stops on the walking tour was at the Cathedral Church of St. James. It has been designated as an Ontario Heritage Property by the Ministry of Culture. It has one of the best stained glass window collections in Canada. The sanctuary was completed in 1853 and the bell tower built between 1865 and 1870. When it was completed, the City of Toronto donated the clock which now graces the tower. The present church replaces others that were built on this site, the first one completed in 1807.

The first three pictures below show the exterior of the Cathedral, the sanctuary, and the stained glass windows above the altar. The fourth picture is a stained glass window that depicts the story of the Pentecost. It is a very unusual window because the glass is Tiffany. There are two additional pictures of stained glass windows – one where Jesus welcomes children and the other of the Last Supper. These are just a few of the many beautiful windows in the church. They all tell stories from the Bible or the history of the Christian Church.

The starting point for our walking tour was the St. Lawrence Market. Its history dates back to the early 1800s when an 1803 proclamation established the area as a public market. Temporary structures were first built and later permanent structures. The portion of the market we visited was the St. Lawrence Market South Building which was built in 1902. In addition to the market, the St. Lawrence Market buildings housed the City Council for a time and also a jail.

We arrived early for our tour so we could spend some time walking around on our own. National Geographic Magazine named St. Lawrence Market as the best market in the world. The main and lower levels of the South Market are home to over 120 vendors, selling a variety of foods including fruit, vegetables, meat, fish, baked goods and dairy products. The pictures below show the exterior of the building, the remains of the jail, and the interior of the market. The last picture in this section was taken from a balcony overlooking the market’s main floor.

When our tour officially started, we went to the basement of the St. Lawrence Market where we ordered a coffee, tea or hot chocolate (first picture). There were many choices! After walking the neighborhood and seeing the sites described earlier in this post, we returned to the Market where we visited several food stalls and sampled food (all included in the price of our tour).

One of the more famous stalls is Carousel Bakery whose signature dish is the World Famous Peameal Bacon Sand­wich. The second and third pictures in this section show the Bakery’s signage and their Peameal Bacon Sandwich (eating in progress). The sandwich has been featured in many magazines and on television in multiple countries.

The next pictures are some of the food we were able to try – bagels, tarts, and a cheese and sausage board. Many of these businesses are family-owned and have been passed from one generation to the next. This was a great tour – we enjoyed getting into the neighborhood and also seeing and eating our way through the St. Lawrence Market.