Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

It's an OK museum. It won't take too long to finish unless you are checking the design of each shoe. It kind of gives an idea of how shoes evolved and also what's the future design may look like. We definitely found some interesting shoes that showed creativity. Don't forget to take the Match it game cards to make your walk through interesting. Honestly, it felt like the cost is a bit high for the size and shows of the museum.

Superbly laid out museum. Very structured and shows the entire history of shoes intertwined with world history, which makes for great reading, not boring at all. 5 floors of exhibits. Start from the basement which is fascinating. Can easily spend two hours here going through the loads of displays and attached descriptions.

A hidden gem a block over from the Royal Ontario Museum. Learn history and the history of shoes. Designer shoes-check, shoes for dolls-check, shoes for celebrities and royals-check. Some amazing historical facts are also presented in great detail and keeping in mind the sensitive nature of some of the topics. Kids can have fun trying to find the different images in a scavenger hunt, paint a shoe and even try out different styles of shoes. Overall a unique experience that will surprise you.

One of my favourite museums in all of Toronto. Their exhibits are apparently always changing so I’ll have to come back but just really cool learning about the history of footwear and all the evolutions of it in different cultures. Also it’s free on Sundays right now so don’t miss out.

The Bata Shoe Museum was ok, but a bit underwhelming. It’s $14/adult to enter. You enter on the 1st floor but have to go to the ground floor to get started. Then climb each floor to see the rest of the museum. I wish it was the other way around so you can take the elevator up and then walk downstairs. The ground floor exhibit was interesting. It talks about the history of shoes throughout generations and by cultures. Each example had 1-3 shoes. There was a small exhibit about dolls and breaking barriers which was neat, not not really about shoes. The top floor exhibit was beautiful, but didn’t make sense and didn’t offer a lot. One part of the museum was closed. What I wanted to see was more modern examples of shoes throughout generations. I wanted to see more “famous shoes” from celebrities or significant moments in time. Apparently the museum has a huge collection of shoes. I wish the ground floor exhibit was more robust.