Toronto - CN Tower

A true tourist cannot go to Toronto and not visit the CN Tower, yet another tower that overlooks a city. So it became another tick for us! As Lonely Planet kindly pointed out, this was definitely a money-grabbing structure. Expensive food at the revolving restaurant and $25 an adult ticket for the most basic entry. Freakiest part? The elevator is on the outside and has a glass wall and a glass FLOOR. It was a little disconcerting looking down as you went up. Or down. Yikes. 

Stats about the tower: it is the highest free-standing structure in the Western Hemisphere (as opposed to building I suppose, or structure that is not free-standing – even though the Willis Tower is also free-standing....). It is 533.33 metres (1,815 feet) tall and when it was completed in 1976, it was the tallest free-standing structure in the world AND the tallest tower in the world, records which it held for 34 years.

The CN part of the name came from Canadian National, the railway company that built the tower. Now it’s the Canadian National Tower or Canada’s National Tower, but no one actually uses that – it’s just the CN Tower. It’s a symbol for Canada and an important part of the Toronto skyline, but to be honest, it’s just a funny looking concrete building from some angles! With a funny shaped alien craft at the top. Apparently it’s one of the Seven Wonders of the World according to the American Society of Civil Engineers (so an engineering wonder I guess!). It’s also the second-place building for the World Federation of Great Towers. In case you wanted to know!

So now we have been there, done that J. Tick to the world’s fifth tallest free-standing structure.

No being spiderman on this structure :(

Not as high/scary as the Willis Tower! This was just a glass panel in the floor, rather than an actual skydeck.