If you’re looking for a good run across Toronto, here’s one I did last Sunday that should function as our “Welcome to Toronto” invitation for the fit and visiting. It’s a loop run but start it wherever you want, I put pedal to pavement beginning at the foot of Queen and Roncesvalles.

In running across the nearly 14km, I count upwards to  17  different attractions/districts of Toronto west of Yonge mentioned blow and pictured above and even though I’ve lived here my whole life felt enriched by the amount of new stuff I noticed:

- starting over the Pedestrian bridge over the Gardiner, stop for a few brief seconds and peer at the cityscape and the speeding cars coming toward you below

- manage to get over the bridge, and you’ll see the famous Palais Royale – a refurbished dance hall and music house since 1932

- continue past the Boulevard Club and Argonaut Rowing Club on the somewhat improved Martin Goodman portion of the Waterfront Trail

- keep following past Ontario Place, the Molson Amphitheatre, The Exhibition and Windshare’s 91 metre high windmill

- continue to Battery Park past the 50 tonne granite Inukshuk dedicated by Pope John Paul II

- watch the slumbering ducks and boats in summer around Coronation Park and HMCS York

- sniff out for signs of civilization as you see some Porter airplanes take off from the controversial Island airport and the houses bordering Little Norway Park

- now you’re on Queen’s Quay – a beehive of activity in Summer (not so much in winter)  – peer out onto Lake Ontario sihouetted by Toronto’s Music Garden, HTO park, Power Plant, Harbourfront Centre and Queen Quay terminal – we’re finally getting this part of the city developed, beautified and people living down here

- make a sharp left turn at the foot of Bay St. at the west side of the Westin Harbour Castle and where the ferries shuttle passengers and tourists over to Ward Island, Centre Island and Hanlon’s Point

- continue up Bay under the Gardiner past the Air Canada Centre – home to professional sports teams – the Maple Leafs, Raptors and Rock  since 1999, a building framed by our previous post office art deco facades

- up Bay, you will find more money per square foot than anywhere else in Canada, for the narcissist like myself – watch your jogging stride in the gold plated windows of the Royal Bank plaza, take in the history of Union Station and continue up Wellington

- make a left and lumber down Wellington Street and stroll past our glassed in music hall – The Roy Thomson Centre and the back of CBC’s massive building

- glimpse a quick left down John St. and peek at the Rogers Centre (formerly Skydome) then veer right and head up John St. to spot the centre of Toronto’s night life and music culture at Queen – personified by the CityTV building at Queen St.

- make a left and feel like you’re doing an aerobic shopping trip through the chains and occasional independents of Queen West – as well as my favourite musci venue The Horseshoe and The Rivoli

- keep moving along Queen to the gentrifying artsy part Queen West West and stride past the magnificently renovated Drake and Gladstone hotels as well as fitness outposts Downward Dog Yoga, fresh for Life, the CAMH sprawling grounds and Trinity Bellwoods park

- keep pushing it under the Queen and Dufferin bridge to a more earthy crustier Parkdale – and spot the occasional new gallery, household/art studio and antique place that dots itself along the improving strip

- finish up at what once the southern outpost of the heartland of Polish and Ukrainian Toronto at Queen & Roncesvalles – take your choice of brunch/coffee meccas of the west end – Mitzi’s, Easy or Cherry Bomb and relax in the small parkette Beaty park overlooking Sunnyside Beach and across from the TTC stockyards…you deserve it.

Here’s  a mapped out description of the run – best to complete over the weekend and off peak season (summer days) – given the fight with pedestrians for space across half the run, enjoy: