Sunday, June 21, 2009

Niagara on the Lake, Ontario Canada





(me and the missus, Celeste and Maurice)
Niagara on the Lake is reported to be the prettiest town in Ontario, and Ontario is a big province. I grew up near Niagara Falls and have been many times, but never to this town several miles north of the falls, where the Niagara River dumps into Lake Ontario. It is totally pretty and I will go again and again.
To explain. We live 3 hours from Niagara Falls and the missus hadn't been there before and so we went and as you see below we hiked all over the woods around the falls. Then we crossed into Canada and headed straight north to this town, which Americans burned to the ground in the War of 1812 and so it was rebuilt. The one pic of the two of us is on the shore of the river where it meets Lake Ontario, and across the river is Fort Niagara, New York which I had visited when I was a kid. Hard to believe all the frontier fighting that once occured here.
Anyway, the town is tres charming and tres expensive and tres chic. Maurice and Celeste are our pals from Toronto and Maurice is currently forbidden from coming into the US (true! they were here last year, but.....) so we met here for lunch at the tres excellent Harp Pub.
Most wonderful adventures, then home having been gone a very long day and then slept like dead people :)

15 comments:

Hilary said...

Sounds like a fun day. NOTL is incredibly expensive.. no matter what you're looking for, but it sure is a beautiful town through which to wander. I've known a few couples who have married there. It's a great setting for romance.

Kimberly said...

Looks like fun despite the rain.

Anonymous said...

Just to expand on the war of 1812 comment: payback's a bitch. You folks burned down NOTL, we torched Washington. LOL

It's an incredibly beautiful place and a lot of the fighting happened at various site around there. We have to take the boys back up in the summer so they can see that stuff.

KaiBlue said...

teehee..nothing like a soft,refreshing breeze and a little river water to brighten the day..
peace, MD n Kai

celeste said...

Never mind the fighting, The Irish Harp does a decent home-brewed lager. I can't comment on their ale, as Maurice is still asleep.

maurice said...

Everybody was fron-tier fighting...

Unknown said...

I am so jealous. It's been a while since Brian and I have left the midwest... I'd love to visit Niagra Falls. It looks like you guys had fun. :)

P.S. I'm glad you didn't feel the urge to get in a barrel. ;)

kate et Jim said...

Hi, CM.

Glad you had a great time, Gary! I adore the header photo! And this one of you and Maude!

cm said...

Hi, kate et Jim. Honestly, I don't know why I let those two hang around.

Prohomemaker.Com said...

Oh what a wonderful mini-vacation -- for you and me! Thanks for all the background -- never knew any of it. Only time I have ever seen a lot of it was in the Marilyn Monroe movie, "Niagra."

And pray tell, why can't Maurice come into the country? Inquiring minds want to know. :-)

Gary's third pottery blog said...

thee were some incidents, some parties in Vermont, Quebec, and HERE, and the charges were later dropped but....

Farmer*swife a/k/a Glass_Half_Full said...

One comment on several posts of beautiful pictures! How wonderful to live so close to all that! We must'n ever forget what's in our own back yards. ;-)

Love it!

Glad you are back!

Toronto Condos said...

Oh I Love the Harp Pub, I've been there every time we visit and so far it's my favorite Irish pub in the world :) Lovely pictures!

Take care, Elli

Unknown said...

Gee! I'm excited! I've always wanted to know someone who'd been declared "Persona Non Grata", and now I do! Sorta. What'd he do, get boisterous in a saloon? Tsk. Smuggled some aspirin, maybe? N'em mind. I don't really want to know, and figure it's a molehill that grew into a mountain anyway.

Anonymous said...

It must have been a pretty bad rap sheet since Celeste and Maurice do NOT want to be photographed!

I'd love to cross over to the Canadian side, but I can't justify getting passports for 6 people only for that. Maybe the Army will send us back to Germany and buy our passports for us? (That would be cool)