On Thanksgiving Day,after had our blunch,spontaneously me and Aaron decided to go somewhere to ride our bicycle. Let us go to Niagara On the Lake the historic town, we said.
Here we went, after about one hour drive on QEW highway, followed the instruction of the GPS, we exited at St.Catherine, a town before Niagara On the Lake, we ended up at west bank of Welland canal.
We were attracted by the huge cargo ship passing by Welland canal. We parked the car at the park, watched the bridge openning a gate for the freighter to pass, then dropped down again for the traffic. The canal must be very deep to allow such huge ship to pass by.
We passed the bridge over Welland canal which was just raised up in the air to allow ship passing by, then to the east bank of the canal. We followed the Lakeshore Rd,passing by the grape farms and wineries-so many of them.Niagara peninsula is famous by its wineries and grape, all kinds of fruits growing. This is a very abundant land.
We arrived at the historic old town of Niagara on the Lake at the west bank of the border river-Niagara river.First we saw lots of tourists from everywhere walking around on the historic streets. The second thing to catch my eyes was the buildings, with over 200 years old history, those buildings on the streets to make the town a truely famous touristic attraction.
From a sign errcted by the town hall, I understand from 1778 the loyalist refugees begun crossing from Fort Niagara to settle the west bank of the Niagara river, a town thus was laid out in a grid patten of four acre blocks. The town was flurishing as the first capital of upper Canada from 1792 to 1796 but was damaged during the war of 1812. Nowaday, most buildings remained on the original sites are the best preserved in Canada between 1815 and 1859.
And many of the old buildings on the main streets were renovated into commercial shops for bakeries,ice creams, coffee shop, souvenir,chocolate,Just Christmas shop, Canadaian collectibles shop, restaurants etc. Beautifully and colorfully decorated all defferent kinds of shops attract tourists as well as local Canadians to stop by.
Among of them, the most famous one is the old Prince Wales Hote and the clock tower in the middle of the main street. In front of the hotel, horse carriages were lining up to wait for the customers patiently.
We walked around on the streets, there was a lovely park with benches, flowers, and fountain, people are everywhere. We saw horse carriages running on the streets, tourists were talking in their own languages, beautiful flowers everywhere on the streets and hanging in the air. The air was floating a relaxing and enjoyable atmosphere.
We turned right to the water front the Queen's Royal park, here is the Niagara river mouth into Lake Ontario, you can see the Fort Niagara of USA at the tip of the east bank of the border river. To your left is the endless Lake Ontario.
There was a wedding taking place here, we saw the bride and groom taking pictures in the pavilion. They made a nice view themselves in the park.
We sat down on the rock, facing to the lake, watching kids playing, people laughing, enjoying the warm sunshine and the nice lake,river views, what a beautiful world it is.
After window shopping for many shops and walked around on the streets, and eating ice creams, the sun was setting down. We headed back home via Lakeshore Rd. from Berlinton, Oakville, then Mississauga. We were amazed by all those millions dollors mansions along the water.
That was our Thanksgiving Day of 2011.
