A Weekend in Niagara Falls

This past weekend we took a little weekend getaway to Niagara Falls for our 5th anniversary. We have spent many anniversaries down in Cape May, but opted to check something off of our travel list. Niagara Falls was the perfect getaway for our time allotted. Let me just preface this with my Thursday. I spent Mon-Thurs in Charleston (which will be my next blog post). Wednesday night (Thursday morning) my aunt & I got home after 2...Thursday I woke up a bit tired and we spent our last day around the town. My flight left at 3 and I arrived back in PA around 6. I quickly packed for our trip Friday morning and took a 20 minute snooze before we headed to go see the 10 PM showing of Avengers. We didn’t end up getting home until about 1 AM and reluctantly set our alarms for 4:30 AM so we could hit the road by 5. This is one of the many reasons I am grateful that neither of us need much sleep and can push through when we need to. We packed the car and began our 6.5 hour drive to the falls.

On our drive, we listened to Game of thrones podcasts and I took about a 30 minute nap before switching to the driver's seat and let Mark sleep for a while. I must say, the drive is a beautiful one. The mountains and trees were really beautiful to see and we also went through a few cool small towns. One of the towns was Mt. Morris, NY. This is where Francis Bellamy was born-he actually wrote the original Pledge of Allegiance. I thought that was pretty cool.

When we realized we would be passing through Buffalo, Mark suggested we stopped at the original Buffalo wings restaurant-The Anchor Bar. It was definitely worth the stop-we each got 10 Medium wings and enjoyed a pint. Once we left, we opted to go over the Rainbow Bridge into Canada and head to our hotel. Mark booked the Hilton Fallsview Hotel which is right in the center area. We were upgraded to a gorgeous suite with a view of the American falls, Skylon, and the whole city (we could even see Toronto).

Friday was very cold & rainy-so after we checked in, we decided to stop at The Keg for a drink as it was recommended by many before we went. Honestly, the only way to get a view of the falls was to be seated and request a window seat. The bar was your typical bar-nothing to rave about honestly.

Next, we went down to the falls to check them out. Sadly there was a lot of fog, but we still were able to capture a few photos and get an idea of how beautiful they truly were. I will be honest, after seeing the waterfalls in Iceland, I wasn’t as “wowed” as I thought I would be. However, they were truly gorgeous and mind blowing at how powerful they were.

After we saw the falls, we went to get ready for dinner. Our hotel had recently opened a cocktail lounge that overlooked the falls-I would highly recommend this is you are looking for a drink and a view-they also have a restaurant that overlooks the falls, but we just went to the top to grab a martini. As we watched the falls, we also viewed where we would be eating-the Skylon. I am EXTREMELY scared of heights and was unaware that the elevator was on the outside of the building. Prior to reaching the cocktail lounge, there was an issue with our elevator in the hotel-it actually got stuck on floor 24! While we sipped our martinis, we went back and forth debating if we should just cancel dinner and go somewhere else…..we decided to just go for it and I would close my eyes on the elevator up lol.

I am very glad that we decided to eat at the Skylon. It is very pricey to eat, but the experience was unforgettable. You are take up an elevator that overlooks the falls into a dining room that rotates 360 degrees while you enjoy your meal. For an appetizer, we ordered a tuna poke. It was nothing to rave about, so we were a little nervous how our main meals would be served. While we were waiting, a woman came around and took pictures that you could purchase for 25 American dollars or 30 Canadian. Instead of buying the pictures, we simply asked our server to take it. Our meals came out and they were really good-I ordered the Sea bass...it was buttery and flavorful. Overall, we were very pleased with our meal experience. We understood the prices would be a little higher than normal as you are there for not just the meal, but the overall experience. Prior to making a reservation, I had checked the time of the sunset-which was around 8PM. We had a 7:45 reservation so we were able to watch the sunset and see the night view of the falls-it was perfect!

I will say that the town of Niagara is very franchised-filled with Hard Rock, Margaretville, Applebee’s, etc. This is not the vibe Mark and I really enjoy, so I was extremely happy I researched prior to getting there about some hidden gems. After dinner we went to Weinkeller-a craft wine bar. This place is literally hidden next to what seemed like a haunted house. I would have never found it if someone had not recommended it to me. I was so glad we found this place-it was exactly what we were looking for. They had a wonderful Cab Sav blend & the bartender was awesome. They recommended that we go to the Casino after-it felt very Atlantic Cityish-but we had a drink & enjoyed the live band. Also, our hotel had a bar called Spyce which had a great band.

Saturday we woke up with the plan of doing some wine tasting. We tried to find a quick breakfast but opted for Starbucks. It was another dreary cold day, but we were not going to let that stop us!

Here is a recap of the vineyards/breweries we stopped at:

Ice House-Niagara is known for their ice wine & it is actually made out of frozen grapes. Very sweet wine, more of a toasting wine.

Inniskillin-beautiful grounds. We opted for a shared tasting-my favorite of the wines was the Boco Noir-I could actually taste the Vanilla in it. Inniskillin was one of the founding wineries in the area.

PondView-Great wine tasting experience/knowledgeable wine connoisseur

Wayne Gretzky Estates Winery & Distillery-Definitely not as touristy as I assumed it would be. The wines were very good-I enjoyed the Rose best. We tasted the whiskeys as well-the Ice Whiskey was AMAZING. Also, it was the first day his beer was being served which was great to taste. We came back on Sunday and bought a few bottles.

Trius Winery & Restaurant-We ate lunch here-very pricey, but the food was great!

Silversmith Brewing Company-Converted Church to brewery. Beautiful establishment & great beer!

The Old Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar-Their pizza was delicious.

Jackson-Triggs Niagara Estate-Great views, wine was pretty decent

Niagara-on-the-Lake Golf Club-Beautiful views of the lake. Public Restaurant that was recommended by a bartender.

Niagara on the Lake Proper was basically a ghost town. There was one Irish pub that had a wait to get into. We opted to head back into Niagara Falls for dinner & drinks. We ended up going back to Weinkeller and we were so glad we did! They have a pre-fix menu that you can choose 5 or 7 items-this includes one entree and it can also include drinks! We chose the 5 item and ordered fried goat cheese, a huge charcuterie board, and a New York Steak. Overall, this was a great price & a wonderful meal. After dinner, we stopped at a bar on the way home and then called it a night!

Sunday we got up and began our departure home. We stopped at the falls one last time before heading back to NOTL for some last minute purchases of the wines/whiskeys we enjoyed. We had lunch at Caroline's winery. OMG the Poutine was to DIE for!!! Buffalo. Chicken. Poutine.

On our way home we passed one of the Finger lakes-Keuka Lake to be specific. We stopped at Pleasant Valley Wine Co. first-most of their wines were extremely sweet but the establishment was pretty neat with a lot of history about how their wine was made. After that, we stopped at Keuka Lake Vineyards where we tried some dry wines. We went and hung out by the lake for a bit before finishing our journey back to Bucks County.

Overall, we squeezed a lot of things into a small amount of time (as we typically do). This was a great little getaway for us. It was a great way to spend our anniversary weekend :)