Royal Ontario Museum (ROM)

The Royal Ontario Museum, known as the ROM, occupies 100 Queen's Park on the edge of Bloor-Yorkville and the University of Toronto campus. It is Canada's largest museum devoted to world cultures and natural history, and its collections run to millions of objects. The building itself is a draw: the original 1914 heritage wings are joined by the Michael Lee-Chin Crystal, Daniel Libeskind's 2007 addition of interlocking angular prisms facing Bloor Street. Inside, visitors move between galleries on dinosaurs and Earth's history, ancient Egypt, the Ming Dynasty tomb displays in the Chinese collections, the Gallery of Korea, and the Sandra Rotman Gallery of the First Peoples, which presents Indigenous art and history from across Canada. The bat cave, the Hall of Dinosaurs with mounted skeletons, and the minerals gallery are especially popular with younger visitors. A full tour of the museum takes three to four hours, and many visitors pick two or three wings rather than attempting everything. The museum is open Tuesday to Sunday, usually from 10:00 AM to 5:30 PM, and is closed Mondays. Weekday mornings are noticeably calmer than weekends, when school groups and families fill the dinosaur galleries. Special exhibitions are ticketed separately or as an add-on to general admission, so it is worth checking the museum's website before arriving. The Crystal's sloping walls make good photography subjects from both inside and outside, particularly from the entrance on Bloor Street West. Museum station on TTC Line 1 exits directly into the building, which is helpful in Ontario's cold winters. The on-site cafes provide food, and the museum shop stocks books and objects tied to the collections.