The Royal Ontario Museum — universally shortened to the ROM — is Canada's largest museum and one of Toronto's essential stops. The collection spans natural history, world cultures, and decorative arts, with particular strengths in ancient Egypt, East Asian art, and Canadian natural history. The dinosaur galleries are outstanding, with full articulated skeletons including a Barosaurus and a rare juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex.
The building itself is worth the visit. The original 1914 Edwardian structure was dramatically extended in 2007 by architect Daniel Libeskind, who added five interlocking crystalline prisms of metal and glass — nicknamed the Crystal — that jut out over Bloor Street at sharp angles. Inside, the intersections between old and new create unusual, vertiginous spaces. The blue whale skeleton hanging in the main hall was once a real animal; the ROM acquired it after it washed up dead on a Newfoundland beach in the 1970s.
Budget at least two hours. The permanent collection is vast, the temporary exhibitions are ambitious, and the café on the main floor is decent for a museum café. Located on Bloor at Avenue Road, it is directly accessible from the Museum subway station.