Happy Halloween!

We'd booked the Niagra Falls tour for today so I was really excited this morning. The tour bus picked us up at 8.40am. Annoyingly we were the first pick up and the driver had about 6 or more stops after us so we didn't actually leave until 10.10am! The journey took an hour and a half. We were already informed that unfortunately the 'Maid of the Mist' boat has now stopped for the season. We got to Toronto on the Monday and the boat stopped on the Sunday! I think if we'd have known earlier we may have made our way over to Toronto sooner.

The first stop if you had paid extra to go was the Skylon Tower. It was only $12.00 extra so we decided to do it. It looks a bit like the CN Tower but nowhere near as tall. We had roughly 20 minutes to look around up there which gave us great views of the falls, both the smaller American falls and the larger Canadian or Horse-shoe falls. This was the first point at which we viewed the falls and I actually said to Kelly 'I thought I'd be more impressed!'. I think it may have been because we were viewing them from quite far away still, but I thought they would be much bigger!

After this we viewed the falls from street level and up close I was more impressed. Another thing I thought was that the sound of the water would be louder.

The equivalent of one million bath tubs full of water goes over the edge every minute! At some points you couldn't even see the water for the mist which travelled right up into the sky and looked just like clouds it was so thick.

The Niagra river divides Canada and the USA and it was crazy to think we were so close to the states, in particular New York. There was a bridge which had a Canadian flag and an American flag marking the two sides with a really small space in the middle which is actually international space. Our driver and guide was brilliant! So funny and informative. He was saying how you could probably commit murder in that space, although you would probably have to spend the rest of your life stuck in that little space.

We had 2 hours free time to spend at the falls. There was lots of things around the area to see and do. It was quite a nice day- it rained a little on and off throughout the day but was also fairly sunny. It was rather cold though.

We decided we'd go and do the 'Journey behind the Falls'. We got a lift down underground and were given ponchos. We came out by the bottom of the falls- it was interesting to see from this viewpoint and we did get pretty soaked when the wind blew all the mist in our direction! There were a couple of tunnels you could walk down that had gated archways at the end and this was directly under and behind the falls! It was so loud here and actually quite eerie. Other than that there wasn't anything else to see down there and was not in my opinion worth the money (this was an extra $14.00)

We had just enough time after this to have some lunch and a little wander before heading back to the bus- we still had lots to see.

Our driver was telling us that if you jumped/attempted to go over the falls (and were lucky enough to survive it) you would be fined $10,000!! which I was really shocked about.

We drove a little way after this and had a quick stop off at the whirlpool rapids. This is where you can see the Niagra river make a complete 90 degree turn. We also stopped to look at the hydro stations where the electricity is produced. There is a Canadian one and an American one.

We then took the scenic Niagra parkway passing various points of interest along the way such as the Botanical Gardens which has a large floral clock, (I think the driver was saying that it was based on, or the only other one is in Edinburgh) Fort George, Brock's Monument, Queenston Heights, the smallest church in Canada, (so cute!) until finally we arrived in the little town of Niagra-On-The-Lake. It briefly became the capital of Upper Canada, and 'jealously preserves it's British way of life'.

They have an apothecary there which was built in 1866 and has been restored, showing old fashioned medicine jars ect but unfortunately it was closed :(

There are no fast food shops there and many of the original shop fronts are still intact. There are red brick houses, the Prince of Wales hotel, and tea shops and bakeries serving buns and scones. It was very quaint and peaceful. We were reccommended one of the bakeries by our driver and I bought a lemon and poppyseed muffin which was yummy! I've never eaten so many muffins, sweets, cookies, and cream cheese filled bagels (which I have become a little obsessed with and can't believe I've actually become a fan of Philadelphia!) since being in Canada. I definitely expect to come back a bit of a porker!

We had an hour's free time to look around the town before it was back on the bus for the final part of our tour- the wine tasting! :) I've never done this before so was looking forward to it. I think something like 80% of Canada's wine comes from the Niagra region! We did pass lots of signs for different wineries along the way.

Most wineries will charge for samples, however our tour company has a good relationship with the particular winery we visited and so our samples were free. It is called 20 Bees Winery and has won a few awards. It is fairly new and they don't have their own store yet, although I think you can buy online and their wines are available in a few other stores. They are hoping to have their own store in the next 2 years. Despite this they are already the 2nd largest wine producers in Ontario which is just staggering given the size of Ontario!!

We tried 3 different wines- a white, a red, and an ice-wine. The wines are rated on a sugar scale. 0 being the dryest and 30 being the sweetest. To put this into perspective they say that maple syrup would be a 60.
The white was a 1 on the scale and I'm not normally a fan of dry white wine but this was lovely! I actually found it to taste quite sweet! Next was the red which was a Dan Aykroyd wine (yes, the actor! he is involved somewhere along the line and is on the tasting panel and approves all the wines) This was a 0 on the sugar scale and I didn't find it as nice as the white.

Finally was the ice-wine which I was really looking forward to tasting. The sample we tried was a 28 on the scale and was quite thick. It is a dessert wine really and you don't need very much of it. It was quite strong but I liked it. You can usually expect to pay around $30-$50 for a bottle of ice-wine because there is so much more that goes into producing it. The amount of grapes that it takes to make around 30 regular bottles of wine is the same amount needed to make just one bottle of ice-wine! Because of being left for longer, more moisture has disappeared from the grapes. The grapes are left until Dec/Jan time before being picked, and even then they need 3-4 consecutive days of minus something conditions before they can be picked individually by hand at something like 4 o'clock in the morning!! They then have only a couple of hours to take the grapes over and start the wine-making process.

After the presentation/tasting Kelly and I bought a bottle of the white- they had it going at a bargain price of just $7.15!! The ice-wine was on offer too at $17.95 a bottle.

It was a lovely end to a lovely day- probably one of my best so far.

It was a lovely evening driving back too- the sky was different tones of blue, yellow and pink. I'm absolutely shattered now though. Think I'll read for a bit and head to bed.