After spending several days at Niagara Falls, both the US and Canadian sides, we decided to go exploring away from the Falls. After crossing into Canada via the Rainbow Bridge, we drove to Niagara-on-the Lake (NOTL), a small, quaint town on the shore of Lake Ontario at the mouth of the Niagara River and about 30 min from Niagara Falls, Canada. Niagara-on-the Lake is perhaps most known for its wineries and the summer Shaw festival. Driving there we passed by so many vineyards and wineries that we thought that we were back in Italy.
After parking, we strolled along the Queen Street in downtown, area with colorful flowers everywhere, historic buildings, charming little shops and restaurants. In view of the limited time that we had to spend in NOTL, I decided to leave my digital camera in the car and instead enjoy the moment and only occasionally capture photos using my iPhone.
Indeed, there were flowers everywhere along the Queen Street.
Even though I am not into collecting antiques, I enjoy looking at them. The Niagara Apothecary, an authentic museum restoration of a 1869 pharmacy at the present location immediately caught my attention.
While strolling down the street, we came across a unique bakery, Budapest Bakeshop specializing in chimney cakes, a traditional Hungarian pastry originating from Transylvania. Another store which caught our attention was the Wine Shop with extensive regional wine selection.
Queen Street and the surrounding area has many 19th century historic buildings.
Niagara area climate is conducive to wine making and there are 28 wineries in NOTL. One of the more recognizable winery names in NOTL are Wayne Gretzky Estates, having the name of a hockey legend and modeled after the family farm. The Estates include winery, distillery, beer garden, restaurant and an also an ice rink in the winter.
Due to our time limitations, I was only able to capture few scenes from our visit to NOTL, but I have enjoyed all our time there. In the future, I would like to visit the area again and spend more time there and capture a more complete story that the area deserves.
