Back in college, Valerie accompanied a friend who was going to Buffalo to visit her grandparents for a weekend. Buffalo, in case you don't know, is very close to Niagara Falls. Valerie really wanted to see the falls, but the friend's grandfather wouldn't let them borrow the car. Ever since that weekend, Valerie has been fixated on visiting Niagara Falls - it was on her bucket list years before she knew she had one, and it has become something of a running joke within our family (the rest of us have been to the falls at one time or another).
This year Valerie and I are each taking big trips separately - me to Asia, Valerie on a cruise - but we did want to do some sort of vacation together as well, so we decided to fulfil Valerie's bucket list item of seeing Niagara Falls, which we would combine with visiting friends in Toronto.
Our first stop along the way was the AKG art museum in Buffalo. We rejiggered our trip at the last minute when we realized that our original itinerary had us visiting the museum on a Tuesday, when it's closed, and so made it to Buffalo mid-day Monday instead and spent a very pleasant afternoon at what turned out to be a very nice museum.
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| I don't want to brag, but along the way I was Guest of the Day at the Altoona Hampton Inn |
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| Viewing the work of artist Yayoi Kusama |
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| Dorky stuff at the museum |
For our overnight in Buffalo I booked a room at the interesting looking Hotel Richardson, in a repurposed grand 19th century building located on 40 acres of parkland designed by the classic landscape designers Olmstead and Vaux (who designed NY's Central Park, and more importantly, Brooklyn's Prospect Park). What the hotel's website doesn't mention is the original use of the building - it was built in the 1890's to house the Buffalo State Asylum for the Insane. Yes, we were staying in a Victorian era insane asylum. Cue the Scooby Doo gang, because the place had to be haunted!
The hotel was equal parts elegant and creepy. The place abounded with gorgeous wood accents. The hallways were enormous, and our room had what must have been a 20 foot high ceiling, but the place was creaky and nearly deserted (it's located near a college*, and July is definitely slow season for college towns).
In the morning when I was getting dressed I discovered that all my cash was gone from my wallet. Nothing else was missing - credit cards, etc. were all there. The wallet had never been out of our possession. But my money was gone. The rational explanation for this was that the previous night I somehow dropped my money when paying for dinner - but that's something which has never happened before, and I didn't even pay for the dinner with cash. I think it was a paranormal event and that a ghost stole my cash. Creepy. I would say the Richardson is in close competition with the
Luddington in Escanaba, MI, for the distinction of being the spookiest hotel in which I've stayed.
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| The Richardson Hotel |
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| Richardson Hotel interior |
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| Our very tall room at The Richardson - what poor souls occupied this room in the past? |
After recovering from our paranormal event, we grabbed a quick breakfast at Starbucks and headed to the New York side of Niagara Falls. I'd heard again and again that the NY side isn't worth visiting: that the view is sub-par, and the place is run down; however, it turns out that nothing could be further from the truth. One accesses the falls via what turns out to be a lovely state park. Yes, you don't get the grand view there, but the location provides some great up-close views of the falls in a very pretty setting. Valerie and I enjoyed walking around all the major vistas in the park before hopping onto the tourist shuttle which took us back to our car.
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| A first view of the falls, from New York |
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| Street piano in Niagara Falls, NY |
From there we drove across into Canada, where we headed for our hotel, which was decidedly less haunted than the Richardson, but had a little history of its own - Marilyn Monroe filmed a
movie there back in the 1953. I had reserved a room with a view of the falls, and the view did not disappoint.
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| View from our hotel room |
After a quick nap (hey, we're old) we headed out to dinner at a Japanese restaurant, along the way stumbling upon the city's tacky downtown. I had time and again heard that the American side was tacky and run down, while the Canadian side was SO MUCH nicer. Well, it turns out rather than being elegant and upscale, the Canadian side is home to a Vegas-y carnival sideshow downtown filled with mini-golf, a wax museum, go-karts, fast food, souvenir shops, and every sort of cheesy boardwalk entertainment imaginable. On my previous visit I had stayed way down at the end of the falls area and hadn't come this far into the city, and it was a real surprise to discover the bustling, cheesy main drag.
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| The "elegance" of Niagara Falls, Canada |
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| There's a fireworks show at the falls every night |
We were determined to maximize our visit to the falls. By this point we had seen them from New York, from Canada, from our hotel room, from the waterfront, and lit up at night by fireworks. The morning brought a real highlight - the classic Niagara Falls boat ride (popularly known as the "Maid of the Mist", though it has a different name on the Canadian side). As cliche as the boat ride is, it turns out to be very cool to get up close to the falls and experience their power. And you get very wet. Fortunately the boat dock was walking distance from our hotel, so after our boat ride we ducked back into the hotel to change clothes. This was actually my third set of clothes for the day, since earlier I had taken a walk past the falls. The wind was blowing towards the shore and so I had gotten pretty wet.
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Morning walk - if you look closely you'll see I'm pretty wet
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| The mistiness of the falls area means lots of rainbows (that's the Marriott all the way on the left) |
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| Boat ride pix |
In the afternoon we wandered around the tacky downtown, browsing in the souvenir stores and getting ice cream from a shop called "Sweet Jesus". I'm surprised that humorless Christians haven't forced this place to change its name - Canada must be more laid back about this sort of thing than America.
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| Sweet Jesus ice cream |
We also added to our falls viewing by riding the big ferris wheel.
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| Valerie on the wheel |
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| The Niagara Wheel |
Walking around the town, it was amazing to see how many of the tourists were Indian, Islamic, and Mennonite. There were even some Hasidic Jews. I don't know why. Maybe nature is an acceptable vacation destination for even the most religious folks, or maybe they're the only ones left who don't think Niagara Falls is uncool.
Anyway, in the evening we ate dinner at a diner-style restaurant which had a patio with a view of the falls, then after a brief hiccup when the hotel's fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate, we watched the fireworks from our room.
In the morning we would be heading out, bound for Toronto.
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