Summers in Toronto can get hot: high 80s, up into the 90s; and, as the city's unofficial refrain goes, it's not the heat-it's the humidity. So the logical thing is to head for the lake. Downtown Toronto's southern edge fronts onto Lake Ontario, offering lots of ways to enjoy life by the water: cultural and festival venues, shopping and restaurants, sail- and paddleboat rentals by the hour, and a series of stellar parks, including Sugar Beach by Claude Cormier + Associes and HtO by Cormier with Janet Rosenberg & Associates and Hariri Pontarini Architects, with their festive umbrellas; PFS Studio's Sherbourne Common with its play of water; the enduringly popular Toronto Music Garden, designed by Julie Moir Messervy in collaboration with the cellist Yo Yo Ma; and a fragrant little wilderness, the Spadina Quay Wetland, by PMA Landscape Architects, where monarch butterflies breed on milkweed and pike lurk among the reeds. Even an anonymous, shrubbery-enclosed square of grass makes it possible to find yourself, just meters from crowds strolling by, alone at the center of a swooping choreography of purple martins: something to make a person forget whatever business they thought they had, and feel just fine.
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