Canada Diary Entry - Aug 24

You wouldn't believe - today, we've been to Niagara!

(As a short story at the side, let's note that I thought for many years that Niagara is actually in Africa, somewhere near Victoria Lake or something... and that the famous daredevil-explorer Livingston has crossed the falls in a wooden barrel. This is because a childrens' illustrated lexikon showed something confusing.)
So, back to the story. Got up early, checked out the way on the map (very clever idea, since yesterday evening on the way to a Jazz bar in downtown I got severely lost on Toronto highways; but in the end this turned out to be useful, since I found a very nice Polish restaurant for Friday night this way) and got going.

So, these are the Canadian-side Horseshoe Falls (the bigger part of the Niagara Falls, the other being the American Falls) as seen from a small vessel which goes right into the mist under the falls:




Everybody here looks very peculiar:



After having seen the falls from above, below, and behind, a short trip further south along the border down to Fort Erie followed (a "historical site"; everything older than 100 years is one, but this seems to have been the site of a battle between the British (or Canadians) and the U.S. in the war of 1812).
BTW, one wouldn't believe this is the same river only a few kilometres upstream on the way to Fort Erie:



Fort Erie, without anybody to check tickets since it's supposed to be closed:



Niagara (the city) itself is a junk, since it's infested by cheap and cheapest stores of the most cheap kind, and tries to shape itself as a gambling and honeymooning place:



Finally, this crossed my way on the highway back to Toronto, or actually lay in the lake water, and it seems it hasn't been intentionally put there as a "shopping&dining" site: