Toronto's PATH network is the world's largest underground pedestrian walkway — 30+ kilometres of tunnels linking 75 buildings under the Financial District. But beyond the Tim Hortons and drugstores, there are genuine oddities: a full indoor ice rink at Scotia Plaza, the underground food court that hasn't changed décor since 1987, unexpected public art installations, an underground hotel lobby, and the disorienting experience of walking for 45 minutes without ever seeing the sky.
Neighbourhood: Downtown Financial District · Address: Enters at any major Financial District tower — Union Station is the best starting point · Hours: Generally 6am–midnight on business days, reduced weekend hours · Price Range: Free · Editorial status: Not yet verified
Explore a surreal, city-sized maze where you can stumble on a full ice rink, strange 1980s food courts, and grand hotel lobbies—all without stepping outside. Perfect if you want to get weird with Toronto’s overlooked, everyday side.
No other city has an underground system this vast with so many oddities: one minute you'll pass a forgotten mini art gallery, the next you’re in a frozen 1970s fast food court or gliding past an indoor rink under skyscrapers. PATH's sheer scale lets you walk for ages without ever seeing daylight—a true urban fever dream.
If you want a version of Toronto that doesn’t announce itself, spend an afternoon wandering its old cemeteries. They’re some of the city’s quietest, most revealing places—full of family names you’ll recognize from street signs and plaques, but also ordinary lives, epidemics, fires, infants, veterans, reformers, and people who simply vanished into the background of the official story. You don’t go for action. You go because the city feels different there: slower, older, a little more honest. The Toronto Necropolis in Cabbagetown is the one I’d send you to first. It’s at 200 Winchester, and somehow still feels overlooked even though it’s right in the middle of the city. The entrance alone sets the tone: a Gothic Revival gate and chapel designed by Henry Langley in 1872, all pointed arches and dark, weathered stone. Inside, the paths curve through mature trees and Victorian monuments that range from elegant to heartbreakingly grand. Some graves are marked by angels, obelisks, or full mausoleums; others are surprisingly modest. In fall, when the leaves turn and the stone picks up that soft gold light, it’s almost absurdly photogenic. Go near late afternoon if you like taking pictures. It’s free, open daily from dawn to dusk, and about a 10-minute walk from Broadview Station. St. James Cemetery feels older in a more formal way. It dates to 1844 and has that solid, Anglican Toronto atmosphere—tidy lanes, old markers, and a Gothic chapel that looks especially good under grey skies. It’s less dramatic than Mount Pleasant and less atmospheric than the Necropolis, but it’s worth seeing if you’re interested in early Toronto and how the city buried its dead before it started pushing outward. It’s also easy to combine with nearby stops if you’re already exploring the east side. Mount Pleasant is a different scale entirely. It’s 200 acres, and it really does feel more like ravine parkland with monuments than a conventional cemetery. You’ll see runners, dog walkers on the perimeter, people sitting on benches, and birders with binoculars pointed into the canopy. If you return in spring migration, you can catch warblers, woodpeckers, thrushes, and all kinds of unexpected movement in the trees. It’s one of the best urban birding spots in the city, which sounds odd until you’re there and realize how much mature habitat it has. Give yourself time—at least an hour, preferably more. It’s free, open daily 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and about a 15-minute walk from Eglinton Station. And then there’s Potter’s Field, which is the most unsettling precisely because it isn’t a cemetery anymore. Near Yonge and Bloor, what was once a pauper’s burial ground was paved over in the 1880s and turned into parkland. People pass through without knowing what’s underneath. That’s part of what makes these places so compelling in Toronto: not just the preserved cemeteries, but the erased ones too. If you like architecture, birding, local history, or just walking somewhere quiet without buying a ticket, this is one of the best ways to see a side of the city most visitors miss.
The PATH is Toronto's underground pedestrian network — 30 kilometres of walkways connecting 75 buildings, 6 subway stations, and hundreds of shops, restaurants, and services beneath the Financial District. It is the world's largest underground shopping complex and is used by over 200,000 people daily in winter. PATH stands for Pedestrian And THeater (a backronym added later).
Start at Union Station and pick up a PATH map. Walk north toward First Canadian Place and then up to the Eaton Centre connection. The route takes about 45 minutes at a relaxed pace. The most disorienting experience is walking from Union Station all the way to Dundas Street — an 800m journey entirely underground. Maps are available from the City of Toronto website.
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