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| St. Michael's Anglican Church |
If someone told you that unicorns existed you would probably
want to see it for yourself… right?
Well, that’s how we felt when we found out that our good friend the
eternal bachelor was getting married.
The wedding was going to be in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario so off to
Canada we went so we could see it unfold firsthand!
Getting there
The first thing we had to do was figure out exactly where
Niagara on the Lake was. It’s a good
thing Walt waited to get married after Al Gore invented the internet because a quick search of
Google and Wikipedia showed us that Niagara-on-the-Lake is in Southern
Ontario Canada. It’s located where the
Niagara River meets Lake Ontario and is directly across the river from
Youngstown, New York.
Toronto and Buffalo are the two closest major airports and there
are pros and cons to both. With Toronto,
it’s easier to find direct flights and you clear customs at the airport but it
is more expensive (about $150 more per person for our trip). Buffalo typically requires a connection and
you have to clear customs at the border but it is usually a cheaper option.
The non-stop flight and the fact that we would not wind up
in Buffalo sealed the deal so we got our tickets to Toronto. (Buffalo friends….I know it is beautiful
during the summer….I still love you J!)
Toronto
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| Toronto from above |
Flying in, Toronto looks a lot like Chicago because it’s a
big city on a really big lake. Going
through customs is super easy and the rental car agencies are on-site which is
a nice change from the Rental Shuttles we’ve become used to in the States
(anyone who has rented a car at Phoenix Sky Harbor knows what I’m talking
about…).
The airport is 20-30 minutes outside of the city and driving
there is no different than driving in the States. We opted to avoid Gardiner Expressway and
took Lake Shore Boulevard into the city because it was more scenic (that and I
missed the split in the road to stay on the Expressway but it turned out for
the best because Gardiner was a parking lot).
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| View from Westin Harbour Castle |
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| Drake One Fifty |
Where I would make a special trip is to the restaurant where
we had dinner, Drake One Fifty. Located in the Financial District it was the
perfect balance of cool, hip chef oriented cuisine without taking itself too
seriously. When your cocktail menu has
creations like Cats Pajamas and Unicorn Dynamite (I’m sensing a theme here!),
it has to be good. They have a large bar
area as well as the doors that open to the patio during good weather. They also have a D.J. that played an amazing
variety of music the night we were there.
We had vegetarians and carnivores at our table and everyone said their
food was great. I wish we had something
like this in Dallas.
While the Canadian Dollar is the local currency, cabs and most businesses take U.S. money. The
exchange rate is close to 1:1 with the CAD being slightly lower so they
actually like getting U.S. money because they make a few cents on it depending
on the daily rate. Getting a taxi is easy in the main part of downtown and Uber is also in Toronto.
We wanted to get to Niagara-on-the-Lake by lunchtime so we
left the city around 9 a.m. the next day. Driving in
Toronto is pretty easy with two exceptions.
You can’t make a left hand turn before 10 am (which is insanely
frustrating) and every major road is under construction. Despite those challenges, we made it out of
the city and were on our way.
Niagara-on-the-Lake
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| NOTL Downtown |
Traffic on Thursday morning was heavy getting out of Toronto
so it took us close to two hours to get there.
The drive was very scenic because the region surrounding
Niagara-on-the-Lake (NOTL) is a major agricultural and viticulture region (a.k.a.
WINERIES!!!). There are fresh fruit and
vegetable stands lining the highway as you make your way into town and reminded
me of summers in N.C. on our way to the beach.
NOTL has a beautiful main street lined with shops and
restaurants. There is also a main square,
which is a beautiful park with several fountains for people to cool off
in. The flowers were in full bloom and
the whole town looked like a movie set.
We were there for the peach festival, which was awesome since that is my
absolute favorite fruit. It was like the
Bubba Gump of street festivals….peach cobbler, peach tarts, peach smoothies,
peach jam, peach on a stick, you get the picture.
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| Peach Festival! |
Niagara-on-the-LakeGolf Club is the oldest golf course in North America. It’s located on the point so you get great
views on each of the nine holes. There
is also a restaurant at the clubhouse with a patio that looks out over the river to Youngstown,
NY. It’s a great spot for lunch even if
you don’t give a flip about golf.
We stayed at Prince of Wales Hotel in the center of town.
It is very old and quaint but the rooms are very nice. The bathrooms are updated and the rooms were
spacious. There is a great bar and they
serve afternoon tea. If you stay and are lucky enough to get a room with a tall four poster bed, they have a cute little step stool that is placed at the foot of the bed.
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| NOTL Golf Club Patio |
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| Yes, all of the flowers look like this! |
That is it's cute until your husband slams his toe into it on day three of our trip claiming he had never seen it (even though it hadn't moved the entire time until he threw it across the room). There really aren't words to describe the feeling you have when your husband breaks his toe five hours before a wedding in which he is a groomsman. At this point it becomes a covert mission to get it iced and elevated and your husband medicated so that he can just get down the aisle and back before the bride knows anything is wrong!
In all seriousness, we would definitely stay at Prince of Wales again but there are other great lodging alternatives. Several people stayed at the Queens Landing hotel, which overlooks the marina. There is a great patio area for lunch or
cocktails. There are also lots of very
cute Bed & Breakfasts within walking distance of everything.
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| Queen's Landing Patio |
In the downtown area itself, there are not that many
restaurants but there are a lot more within a quick five-minute drive. Most of our meals were in conjunction with
the wedding but we did go to dinner one night at Ristorante Giardino at the Gate House Hotel. There is large patio,
which was very crowded but because of the size of our party and the last
minute reservation we were seated inside.
The service was not great and the food was okay. My guess is that this is a better place to
enjoy a leisurely afternoon lunch or to go to with a smaller party.
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| Even the squirrels are pretty! |
If shopping and looking at beautiful old homes aren't your thing there are also jet boat trips that leave from NOTL that
several people in our group raved about.
You apparently go very fast and get very wet which was popular with the
kids (both young and old).
The town sometimes gets pegged with the nickname “Viagra-on-the-Lake” because of its sleepy nature and older resident population. Things do shut down fairly early but sometimes that’s not a bad thing.
Wineries
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| Winner: Best use of old wine barrel |
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| Ravine Vineyards |
Most of the wineries are located very close to one another
which makes it easy to visit several in one day and is therefore very efficient! They are known for their ice wines in this
region but also have other varietals such as Chardonnay, Cabernet and Pinot
Noir. According to the locals, this area
does not get the lake effect winters that their neighbors in Buffalo get which
makes it more conducive for grape growing.
The first winery we visited was Ravine Vineyards for lunch.
It’s about ten minutes out of Niagara-on-the-Lake and has a great
authentic farmhouse feel to it. They
have a big outdoor lawn with ping pong tables and outdoor dining. The place was packed when we were there so
I’d recommend calling ahead.
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| Baby Doll Sheep at Southbrook |
Southbrook Vineyards
was our next stop and it is one of the overall coolest wineries I’ve ever been
too. They create artisanal organic wines
and the winery is LEED certified. Their
Poetica Cabernet Merlot was my favorite.
Their wines are very reasonable and are in the $20 - $50 range and you
can do a tasting of four wines for $10. They
take this environmental stuff so seriously that they have Baby Doll Sheep that
help to keep the fields cut. The people
who work there are great. Ask for Graham
if you go.
Stratus Vineyards was
our next stop and it is clearly the best funded. The winery is very modern and stark with its
black, white and gray décor. There is a
great sitting area outside that overlooks the vines. They also have some great food and culinary
items in their gift shop. My favorite
was the Malbec and the prices here are higher than other places starting around
$25 and going way up from there. They
also offer a tasting of four wines for $10.
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| Stratus Vineyards |
Both of the previous vineyards allowed you to purchase a
glass of wine to enjoy if you did not want to partake in a full tasting. Lailey Vineyards apparently does not have the proper licensing for this which
meant that the people who didn’t want to do a tasting had to just watch the
rest of us. They also charge differently
for their tastings in that it is either $1 or $2 per taste. The wines were not as strong as Southbrook or
Stratus and their tasting room is also just a small shed.
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| Wine tasting is exhausting! |
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| Dessert tasting at Inniskillin |
Inniskillin was
the last stop on our tasting tour. They
are clearly the most commercial winery in the area as it was similar to going
to Beringer or Kendall Jackson in California.
They are known for their ice wines.
I generally find ice wines to be too sweet but they had a sparkling ice
wine that I liked. Of course, it was
$120 a bottle and I’m not going to spend that on anything but a good
Cabernet!
The rehearsal dinner was held at Trius Vineyards. They are
located on the road leading into Niagara-on-the-Lake so it’s very easy to
find. We had a great room that looked
out over the vineyards. There is also a
lot of outdoor seating for the restaurant.
The food was very good. In fact there was a unicorn roast (ok, it was just the groomsman roasting the groom but I had to keep with the theme!)
Niagara Falls
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| Panoramic view of the Falls |
I’m not usually a big fan of large crowds in touristy places
but how can you be this close and not go to Niagara Falls? Unfortunately, we waited until Sunday to
visit so it was very crowded. You can
visit from either the U.S. or Canadian side but we chose the Canadian side
(since we already in Canada…duh).
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| Howdy Folks! |
It’s easy to find.
All you have to do is look for the huge hotels and casino signs rising
about the trees and you will know you are close. Visiting the falls is not for the lazy as
parking is a 10 minute walk from the falls and another 15 minute walk to the
boats that will take you right up to the falls (Hornblower is the Canadian
boat).
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| Hornblower Cruise (yes, that really is a boat) |
There is a tourist center at the end of the parking lot
where you can sign up for tours, watch a movie and take an elevator behind the
falls. Tickets for the Hornblower boat
ride have to be purchased at the dock.
Before you stand in line for 20 minutes to purchase boat tickets, check
to see what departure time they are selling.
Even though we were there before 12pm, they were already selling the 2pm
time slot. Because we were flying out
that night we did not get to go on the boat.
Since the boat ride was out, we did the next best
thing. We had lunch at the outdoor patio
restaurant overlooking the falls. Food
in places like this usually consists of cardboard pizza and gelatinous nachos
but we were pleasantly surprised.
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| Restaurant at Niagara Falls |
After lunch, it was time to head back to Toronto to catch
our flight. Luckily, the airport is
between NOTL and the city so it only took us about an hour and a half to get
back.
Traveling Home
Important note, if you rent a car in Toronto make sure you
know what terminal you are departing from BEFORE you get to the airport. There are two separate rental car locations,
one at each terminal. If you do happen
to wind up at the wrong one, they very nicely let you back out of the parking
lot and direct you to the right location.
Every airline and airport advises travelers to be at the
airport at least two hours prior to international departures. In Canada this is really important because
U.S. Citizens pre-clear customs in Canada and it takes time. I watched them turn back a guy who was at
customs under an hour prior to his departure because they said he didn’t have
time.
Once you check in with your airline, you will be directed to
U.S. Customs. They have automated kiosks
now so you don’t need a customs form if you have a U.S. Passport. The bubble gum chewing guy monitoring the
entrance apparently couldn’t be bothered to tell us that so it took a large
group of us a few minutes to figure this out. The machines are super easy to use. All you do is insert your passport, answer a
few questions and have your picture taken at the kiosk. A paper ticket will be printed out and you
take that and your passport and continue through immigration.
(Note: this is
different from the Global Entry Program.
There are different lines and machines for people enrolled in that
program. I would let you know how works
but my appointment to finalize my GOES application was not until the day AFTER
I got back from Canada. Typical.)
Overall, this trip was amazing. The bride and groom got married, we ate lunch
outside in August (this is a very big deal if you live in Texas) and we shared
some good food, good wine and great fun with friends old and new.
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