After landing in the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, we found ourselves in a bit of a cultural wasteland. To be more precise, we found ourselves on a strip of urban ugliness that called itself, “Las Vegas North”. Of course, what with the snow, ice and other non-Las Vegasy embellishments, the town might have been better termed “Reno North”. So we got out of there as soon as we had our fill of the falls, and went on to a quaint town called Niagara-on-the-Lake, with the byline - “the loveliest town in Ontario”. We drove alongside the Niagara River and up to the mouth where it met with Ontario Lake, where Niagara-on-the-Lake is situated.

This area is also the Niagara region wine country, with 18 wineries located in the general vicinity. To cut to the chase — we didn’t stop at any of the wineries. Buuut, that’s simply because none of them were open! Makes sense — several of the smaller Finger Lakes wineries were also closed and that area is generally much more well-known in terms of wine production.

As much as one can learn of wineries from the road, it appears that the Niagara-on-the-Lake wineries produce mainly ice wine and Riesling. The wineries are packed pretty close together (in fact, I bet you could do a biking wineries tour pretty easily), and come lined in a row all the way up Niagara Parkway and down Lakeshore Road, as can be seen in this nifty little map produced by a local bed & breakfast (of which there are lots in Niagara-on-the-Lake).

Antonio Vivaldi’s Bed & Breakfast

The scenery along this trail is lovely (I can only imagine it gets better during warmer times), and there’s alot of stopping points to jump out of your car and walk on the shore of Lake Ontario (or, if you come during March, you can walk on Lake Ontario), or watch hawks flying over the Niagara River gorge.

I’m probably done with Niagara Falls during my lifetime, but Niagara-on-the-Lake might warrant another trip, perhaps several years down the road. And then maybe I can write a post about actual wine, from actual wineries ;).