The biggest star of LuminaTO, is Toronto itself, a beautiful, and manageable despite its size, city which is a mix of its British past (and present: the Queen is still hot news there) and multi-cultural present.

A custom-designed walking tour with Bruce Bell (www.brucebelltours.com), an engaging former actor and Toronto historian, was a wide-ranging wander - from the striking city hall with "arms" outstretched, to the Dominion buildings, designed by Mies van der Rohe, to the funkier Queen Street area.

In the past five years, there has been a big creative building boom with major remakes of the Royal Ontario Museum (a striking Liebeskind-designed crystal-like extension "stuck" onto the old building, and which was the venue for the swanky opening night after-party for over 1,000 people), the Art Gallery of Ontario, the Royal Conservatory of Music and the Gardiner Museum, as well as brand new buildings such as the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts, the National Ballet School, and the Young Centre for the Performing Arts.

Thousands of older buildings were torn down for the developments since the 1950s (not all were noteworthy); those that remain, the courthouse, the university, for example, stand out. As Bell points out, Toronto is less the melting pot that its nearest neighbour is, and is instead famously multi-cultural, where immigrants' backgrounds are celebrated rather than absorbed . . . which is a perfect canvas on which to paint a festival. www.luminato.com; www.torontotourism.com