The Eaton Centre, Toronto

During my time in Toronto, I wanted to make the most of the shopping opportunities. I was told the best place for this would be The Eaton Centre as it is the largest in the city. Situated in the heart of the city, downtown, you can find this shopping centre on Yonge Street and it takes up a whole blocks worth of space. You can find the biggest and main entrance on Queen Street although there are many other entrances you can choose from. Even if you don't know your way around downtown, you are bound to stumble across one of the entrances at some point or another. It is extremely hard to miss!!

As for opening times, they are really good and they can be seen below. During the holidays and for any one day holidays, opening times change slightly but the website does state opening times for holidays throughout the year. I loved that this shopping centre was open late on all weekdays. Due to working some crazy hours, it was nice to be able to go shopping after work if I felt like it instead of being stuck to regular office hours.

Monday to Friday 10 AM - 9 PM
Saturday 9:30 AM - 7 PM
Sunday 11 AM - 6 PM
As you walk up to the centre, you can only be amazed at the size of it. Over four floors, one of which is the basement, you can find over 230 shops. I was so shocked at just how many shops there were in one building and I really have never seen anything like it. As well as shops there are plenty of places to eat and to chill out with friends. One of my favourite shops here was the book shop due to the sheer size of it. There were comfy chairs all over the place and so many beautiful books to choose from.

One of the best things about shopping here is the diversity of shops. Not only does The Eaton Centre host high end boutiques and designer shops, there are also mainstream 'high street' brands, well known Canadian chains but there are a lot of European clothes shops as well. The centre is quite well divided into price ranges when it comes to the layout of shops. The more expensive shops are all together whereas the lower levels are home to the more mainstream shops. The lower floors are obviously the busiest due to more people being able to afford to shop there but also there are more places to eat there as well.

There aren't only clothes shops in The Eaton Centre though. You can really find anything you want here. The centre is home to Sears, which is a massive department store which sells everything and anything. There are also sports shops, electronics, places to get your hair and nails done and anything else you can think of really. I loved being able to go to one place and get anything that I needed. I could quite happily go here to do Christmas shopping and not have to go anywhere else. It really is a shopper's paradise.

After a hard days shopping, I always loved to go to the food court. Shopping centres in Canada were fantastic for the choice of food available. The food court here really offers everything from chinese, burgers, hot dogs, sushi – you get the point. Whatever you want to eat, you can find it here. If you don't want to brave the massively busy food court though, you can always go to one of the few restaurants in the centre as well.

The Eaten Centre is definitely my favourite shopping centre in the world and would love to go again soon!