Cascada Niagara

I’ve always been drawn to the wonders that nature has to offer and when I bought my ticket to America, I knew I wanted to get to the most visited waterfall in the world, Niagara Falls.

So I booked 3 days just for this, as the drive is quite long from New York to the Canadian border, apx.9h by car.

I chose to visit on the Canadian side, being captivated by the Canadian Waterfall, also called the Horseshoe. This, together with the American Falls and the Bridal Valley Falls form what we know as Niagara Falls.

Niagara Falls, 56 m high and 1,203 m wide, forms the natural border between the USA and Canada, separating southern Ontario (Canada) from northern New York (North America). It is indeed a marvel. You can sit for hours admiring it and never get bored. It’s a real spectacle, both day and night, when it’s brightly lit and beautifully coloured.

What did I do for 3 days there?

First of all, I got accommodation at a hotel, right next to it, to have a view of the waterfall at all times. For this, if you get a chance to get there, I recommend the Marriott hotel, which has some gorgeous rooms with huge windows from which you can admire the waterfall in all its glory.

As soon as you get here, you feel like you’re in an amusement park, being full of shops with sweets, costumes, toys. It’s a place where little ones as well as adults can play. The most exciting playground for adults is the Fallsview Casino resort, where you can find besides gambling, nightclubs, shops, five-star restaurants and musical performances. You can’t get bored in a place like this. I tried my luck at gambling and walked away with an extra $50 🙂

Hornblower, a must on this trip!

From the first moment I saw the waterfall, I knew I wanted to get there, as close to the water curtain as possible, and the best way to do that was to take the Hornblower, a boat that carries passengers to the bay made by the waterfall and where you can hear the roar of the waters on either side.
I recommend you wear slippers/sandals that don’t break down in the water, because you’ll get thoroughly soaked, despite the raincoats you get when you board the boat.

Another place where you can see the waterfall’s grandeur is also Skylon Tower, where I chose to have dinner in the rotating restaurant, which is 236 meters high and rotates 360 degrees in 1 hour. This was certainly a different and truly special experience. Although they praise the food a lot here, it didn’t impress me, but the atmosphere and view made all the money.

The resort is full of souvenir shops, fast food outlets, restaurants, an amusement park, in a word, it’s perfect for a weekend full of activities.

A run to Toronto

On my last day in Canada, I chose to head to Toronto to get the pulse of the city and visit the famous Ripley’s Aquarium, where you can see diverse underwater and freshwater marine life from around the world, where apx.13,500 life forms are on public display.

In this huge, open aquarium with nine exciting galleries, visitors can see species of jellyfish, giant lobsters, sharks and a host of vibrant colorful fish floating above a unique viewing tunnel.

 

Just as you exit the aquarium, next to it, is the famous CN Tower, which was once the tallest free-standing structure in the world (surpassed by many others today), standing 553 meters tall and considered one of the seven wonders of the modern world by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Here you have the option of simply appreciating the building from the ground up, as I did, or hiking up to one of the viewing areas or restaurants for fabulous views of the city and Lake Ontario.

Toronto, as little as I had a chance to see of it, seemed like a dynamic city with beautiful buildings, clean streets and nearby sights that were easy enough to get from place to place on foot.

Canada left me with a very good, unexpected impression and with a desire to go back and see more of it.

If you have any Canada-related recommendations, I look forward to them.

See you soon,
Mada