Hamilton

Hamilton is Canada's steel capital—not exactly the sort of city where you'd expect to find acres of gardens and exotic plants, a symphony orchestra, Ontario's third-largest art gallery, a modern and active theater, 45 parks, and a developed waterfront. But they're all here in the province's second-largest city (population nearly 500,000) and Canada's third-busiest port. Downtown Hamilton, between the harbor and the base of "the mountain" (a 250-foot-high section of the Niagara Escarpment), is a potpourri of glass-walled high-rises, century-old mansions, a convention center, a coliseum, and a shopping complex.