Thursday, 23 May 2019

Canada Update Final

We flew WestJet, a subsidiary of Air Canada, from Calgary to Toronto and had an exciting ride in the taxi from the airport to our lodgings. The taxi driver was devotee of car racing video games and was putting all his skills to a test. He went well - we survived!
Our AirBnB in Toronto was fine with enough space for us and a good location to shops and restaurants. The major reason for Toronto stopover was to visit Niagara Falls.
We had organised a tour to the falls and were picked up in the city for the day. The coach driver was also th guide and he was very good, excellent knowledge of the falls and surrounding area.
The falls have been a bucket list item for me for years and they did not fail to impress. No pictures, videos or movies can do justice to the magnificence of Niagara Falls. The US / Canada border splits the 2 main falls with the Canadian one slightly higher.
After descending the cliff face in the gondola we boarded the Lady of the Mist cruise boat complete with our free and obligatory rain coat and hood. Me being from Australia put it on backwards at first but a kind US lady sorted me out and for the rest of the cruise and lunch payed out on me.
The cruise around the lake, up to and into the mist of the falls was great and the rain coats plus hood works about 60% - we got very wet, but worth every drop. The volume of water coming over the falls is astounding whether expressed in litres per second or tonnes it is a lot - 567,000 litres per second for the American falls and 2,271,247 litres per second for the Canadian "Horseshoe Falls". The water is moving between  Lake Superior / Lake Huron / Lake St Clair / Lake Erie, over the falls to Lake Ontario, through the St Lawrence River (seaway) to the North Atlantic Ocean.
We had lunch at Sheraton Niagara, visited Pillitteri Winery and visited the smallest church in North America - all 5 seats of it. Cruised back to Toronto very satisfied with our final day exploring Canada.
The next day it was a reasonably early start for the airport and our flight to Paris. Dropped off our bags, boarded our Lufthansa flight through Munich to Paris. All good.

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