What are the best day trips from Toronto?

Niagara-on-the-Lake over Niagara Falls for couples. The Falls are loud, wet, and packed with families in matching ponchos. Niagara-on-the-Lake sits 20 km north on the lakeshore, and the pace drops. You'll find 40+ wineries along the route between St. Catharines and the town. Trius Winery does a $45 CAD tasting flight for two with a cheese board on the patio. Peller Estates runs a 10Below icewine lounge where the room stays at -10°C and they hand you fur capes at the door. The cold hits your face the second you walk in, and the icewine tastes different when you're shivering together. The Shaw Festival (founded 1962) runs plays April through November across 3 theatres. Book the 2pm matinee at the Festival Theatre (730 seats, built 1973) and you're back in Toronto by 9pm. Drive is 90 minutes on the QEW, or the seasonal GO bus from Union Station runs about $20 CAD each way. One partner wants wine, the other wants theatre. Both happen in the same 4-block radius.

Stratford works when one of you wants serious theatre and the other wants to eat well. The Stratford Festival (founded 1953) runs a dozen plays April through October across 4 stages. The Tom Patterson Theatre seats 600 after a $70-million rebuild, and the sightlines are tight enough that every seat feels close. Between shows, the food scene in a town of 33,000 has no right being this good. Revival House on Ontario Street does a prix fixe dinner for about $85 CAD per person. Pazzo Taverna on Erie Street makes handmade pasta in a room with exposed brick and 14-foot ceilings, warm light pooling on the tables. The 2-hour drive from Toronto (150 km west on the 401 to Highway 7/8) means you'll want to leave by 9am for a matinee, but you can linger over dinner and still be home by 10pm. Worth noting that midweek performances tend to be less crowded and $20-30 cheaper per ticket.

Hamilton surprises couples who write it off as industrial. The Dundas Peak trail (20-minute hike from the parking lot on Harvest Road) ends at a lookout over Spencer Gorge, and in June the green is so dense the canopy looks almost tropical. Webster's Falls sits 5 minutes from there, the spray cool on your skin even on a 22°C afternoon like today. The city is 70 km southwest and reachable by GO train from Union Station in 55 minutes for about $14 CAD. Elora is further (130 km northwest, 90 minutes by car) but the limestone gorge drops 22 metres and you can swim in it July through August when the Grand River warms to about 20°C. The town itself walks in 30 minutes. Elora Brewing Company on Metcalfe Street pours a solid pilsner in a converted 19th-century mill with thick stone walls that keep the room cool even in July heat.

Prince Edward County demands a full day and honest expectations about drive time. It's 200 km east of Toronto, about 2.5 hours on the 401 to the Carrying Place turn. The wine region has grown to 40+ producers since the first vines went in around 2001, and the style leans toward cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Norman Hardie (established 2004) on Closson Road pours $5 tastings and the back patio overlooks 25 acres of vines, the smell of warm earth mixing with whatever's on the grill. Sandbanks Provincial Park has freshwater sand dunes stretching 8 km along West Lake. That said, the drive means leaving Toronto by 8am to have real time there. Couples who want the wine-country feel without 5 hours of driving should stick with Niagara-on-the-Lake. Prince Edward County is better as an overnight. The Drake Devonshire starts at about $350 CAD per night in June.