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Published: December 22nd 2012
Niagara
American Falls lit up... and so continuing from our previous blog on Buffalo. Just another long weekend trip for us driving 10 hours and countless of miles to experience life in other places.
First stop after crossing the border into Canada - NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE (Canadian side). What a little gem of a place that we never knew existed. Right smack in the middle of Canadian wine country - again no idea this existed, but I guess every country has its wine "area". We thought the Eastern Townships by Montreal was it, but oh were we mistaken. We did a last minute booking at the River Breeze Inn while driving. We definitely are starting to like the whole B&B scene more and more. It just gives you that little extra experience in meeting people and hearing their story. Our room was PINK. Very PINK. I believe it was the princess room. Yes when you get into the B&B world get ready for some weird things at times. It was a beautiful house on the river run by an old French couple. The highlight, as with most B&B's, was the breakfast. A good old fashioned "French breakfast" outside on the porch with good company and good
Niagara
Horseshoe falls at night conversation. Yes, life is good.
The night before we made a late night trip into NIAGARA FALLS TOWN, famous for... you guessed it - NIAGARA FALLS. Niagara was a first for both of us and wow... we were completely blown away. Watch out Las Vegas. Completely over-commercialized and not what we expected at all. Margaritaville Bar complete with attractions, rides, casinos and entertainment for the whole family. I think we were in complete shock for a while as we drove through the maze of neon lights. Oh yes - don't forget about the casino's. The drive along the river was completely packed with cars, parking was impossible to find, and there were thousands of people out and about. Just another fun night out in Niagara I guess. We eventually settled for parking at $20 for a couple hours and just a couple blocks from the falls. There are cheaper options with park-and-ride, but it was already kind of late so we just bit the bullet on this one.
FORM A LASTING IMPRESSION AT NIAGARA FALLS - well we tried to anyway. The falls was pretty awesome at night. It was lit-up in different colors and we were able
Niagara
Falls in b&w to take some pretty cool pictures. WATCHING THE FALLS AT NIGHT FROM THE CANADIAN SIDE is definitely a must. Unfortunately we were not able to experience the American side so we can't give any opinions, but from everything that we have heard and seen the Canadian side is better. The best part about the falls is just being able to be so close to where it all drops over - there is literally just a railing between you and the falls. It is pretty cool to be this close and just see millions and millions of gallons of water dropping over the falls. The falls are really pretty and the horseshoe fall is pretty wide. Not the highest of falls, but all in all we would say definitely a pretty cool experience. We saw the AMERICAN FALLS on the other side, but we'll leave these for another time. Having been to the falls at Iguazu it really is sad to say that Niagara pales in comparison. There really is no comparison. To quote Mrs. Eleanor Rooseveldt as I have in our Argentina blog. After she saw the Iguazu falls she said: "Poor Niagara". And yes she was pretty spot on.
Niagara
More fireworks None-the-less we think Niagara was pretty cool. We were even luckier to be there while they were doing FIREWORKS OVER THE FALLS during JUNE - AUGUST ON WEEKENDS. The fireworks over the falls were pretty cool. Walking downstream there is just a constant mist coming from the falls. The really neat thing about the falls is also that the mist at times completely cover the falls and then 10 minutes later you can see the falls completely again. After coming back from Toronto we managed to spend a night at the Marriott overlooking the falls. The rate for Saturday night was $300. The rate for Monday night was $129. So there you have it. Go during the week and get a cheap room overlooking the falls. The view was really spectacular and I would say that it is definitely worth the money to get a room overlooking the falls. Make sure you get a room on one of the upper floors since the view from the lower levels could be blocked from seeing the falls. We found a pleasant alternative for our drive back to the States. Instead of taking the highway we took the NIAGARA PARKWAY where there are
Niagara
Fireworks over Niagara Falls GARDENS BETWEEN FORT ERIE and NIAGARA-ON-THE-LAKE. A beautiful drive along the river with grand old houses and beautiful gardens.
We kindof/sort of knew that this area was known for their wines and we planned on spending a little bit of time "vineyard touring", but we were pleasantly surprised to find all the wineries. NIAGARA WINE COUNTRY was not our first thought when thinking about Niagara. Our starting point was PELLER ESTATES WINERY. We found some really good wines and lots of wines with a very strong smoky flavor (kind of like burnt marshmallow). We also discovered something we have never heard of before - ICE WINE. So a quick tutorial. Niagara-on-the-lake is one of the best areas in the world for ice wine so they are apparently pretty known for their ice wine. At harvest time in September - October they leave the grapes on the vine. The grapes stay on the vine until winter. As soon as they have 3 straight days of -10 degrees fahrenheit or below they go in for the harvest/kill. We were told they usually start harvesting on the third day at midnight and they pay $100 per day - so anyone willing to
Niagara
SBUX over the waterfall brave the cold is welcome to join. By this time the "grape" is nothing but a little scrunched up raisin with only a couple drops of extremely concentrated sweet liquid. This is then taken through the usual wine making process. The wine is very, very sweet. At first we were very skeptical, because neither of us really likes sweet/desert wines at all. In fact I hate it. I won't even try it anymore. So we were really skeptical. We tried it and it was... incredible. Initially we tried the white wine version and we really, really liked it. It was very sweet, but completely different from your typical port/desert wine. As a side note - noting the process that the wine has to go through as explained above it is no wonder that a small bottle (16 - 20 ounces) goes for about $40 - $50. So off course as our "wine pourer" saw our delightful reaction to the white ice wine he proceeded to tell us about the real good stuff. Off course the "cabernet version" of ice wine (red) was just that much better, apparently that much rarer and therefore that much more expensive. We walked out with
Niagara
The falls close-up a $90 bottle of Cabernet ice wine. Yes it is that good. Definitely the find/discovery of the year for us. Also at Peller Estates they have a very renowned Canadian chef running the kitchen so we showed up for the 5 course tasting menu and it was an absolute delight with some really good wine pairings. We definitely recommend the winery and the restaurant.
Next up was CHATEAU DES CHARMES WINERY. They actually offered a tour so we did a tour of the estate and winery with a quick tour of the cellar as well. A very educational tour since the owner of the vineyard in essence started the "wine business" in the area and experimented heavily with various grape varietals to come up with the right combinations for this particular climate. A beautiful estate and building with beautiful gardens and a fountain. The wines were not as good as Peller, but we still walked out with a couple bottles. Next up and last stop... Toronto.
TORONTO is only an hour or so from the border so it is pretty easily accessible from most of the Northeast United States. It felt like we drove forever, but we finally
Niagara-on-the-Lake
Tasting at Peller Estate made it. Toronto was a complete mystery to us. We did not know what to expect. A little bit of Montreal? A little bit of New York City? Well it is pretty much a hodge podge of everything. Hotels were somewhat of a problem. As in most cities the downtown area was pretty expensive so we settled for the Marriott at the airport about 15 minutes from downtown Toronto.
Our first stop was KENSINGTON MARKET FOR CREPES. We heard that Kensington Market was the "chic" area of Toronto. We had a chicken stew crepe at Krepesz (it was ok). Walking around the area was pretty fun with a lot of international flavors and lots of funky people. It had a very Greenwich Village feel to it. Very chic, hip and everything goes. The ART GALLERY OF ONTARIO is in the area so we made a point of visiting. Definitely a recommendation and one of the better galleries we have been to. On the menu - TINTORETTO's "CHRIST WASHING THE DISCIPLES' FEET", DEGAS's "WOMAN AT HER BATH", RUBENS''s "MASSACRE OF THE INNOCENTS" and various REMBRANDT's and VAN GOGH's. Unfortunately for the most part photography was not allowed so that was
kind of a bummer. We headed back to Kensington to start our EATING YOUR WAY AROUND THE WORLD IN TORONTO. We already did crepes from a Portuguese restaurant. We had some good Mexican food at El Trompo Taco Bar (guacamole, lime margarita, taco al pastor - good food). We actually could not stop laughing because who would have thought that we would travel all the way to Toronto to eat Mexican food. It was really good though and the margarita's definitely hit the spot. After driving around for a little bit - exploring and getting lost - we ended up for a quick bite IN GREEKTOWN FOR COFFEE AND PASTRIES. Definitely seemed like one of the bigger Greek areas that we have seen (not that we are experts in this area). We were seated outside on the patio at Cafe Frappe for some good strong Greek coffee and baklava's. People were just sitting around playing games, enjoying the weather and having a good time. Such a different temperament from the New York hustle and bustle.
We were extremely surprised by the diversity that we encountered in Toronto. Every international flavor you can imagine is there. The Canadian melting pot
or the "New York" of Canada is what we would call it. The food was good, the people were friendly and our 24 hours in Toronto definitely made us wanna return for more later on. We squeezed in a quick TORONTO BLUE JAYS and Boston Red Sox game (not quick since it lasted 14 innings and the Red Sox ended up losing so not a good day). The CN TOWER was right above the open roof of the baseball field and we saw it a couple times as we drove around, but that was as far as we got to the CN Tower. Maybe next time we'll get a closer look.
Well that was our trip in a nutshell. We had a good time and experienced a lot of new/different things. We managed to cross-off 8 things from our books including Niagara Falls, Art Gallery of Ontario, Niagara Wine Country, Eating Your Way Around the World in Toronto and Form a Lasting Impression at Niagara Falls. So 169 down and 5,612 to go.
Til next time from an unexpected grape place
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