As you can probably tell from the pictures (you can click on any of them to see the full size version), we chose a visit to Niagara Falls in Canada for our August Bank Holiday break. We had been planning this trip for quite a while as part of our long term plan to see all of the, so called, Wonders of the World. However, when we looked into booking it, we found that all of the package tours added an excessive flight supplement on top of the already seasonally expensive rate for stays in excess of 6 days... and we wanted to go for two weeks! We ended up arranging the holiday ourselves by booking the flight and hotels directly and, even though we paid over the odds for the flight (because we booked late), we still, surprisingly, saved quite a bit on the package tour price.

Our flight arrived at Toronto just before noon. We picked up our hire car and drove the 80 miles around the tip of Lake Ontario towards Niagara Falls. We had chosen such an early flight so that we could make this journey in the daylight so that it would be easier to find our way but also so that we could appreciate the scenery. Unfortunately, almost the entire journey was built up as one town ran into the next and we only caught a few glimpses of this truly enormous lake (Lake Ontario is actually the smallest of the Great Lakes but you still couldn't see the other side of it even from the 'plane as it flew into Toronto).

The Canadian Horseshoe Falls as viewed from the Skylon Tower. You can see the Maid Of The Mist on its way to soak another boatload of tourists.

We walked along the edge of the gorge towards the Horseshoe Falls and, as we got nearer, we could feel a light mist which got progressively heavier until it was drenching us by the time we arrived at the edge of the falls. This came from the mist plume you can see in the centre of the falls which was being blown towards us on a light wind. Despite the American Fall's name, this is actually where the rainbows hung out. As we walked away, I noticed that, despite being wet, Lina's hair was standing on end and, looking around, so was everybody else's! The mist from the falls must have been electrostatically charged.

Over the next four days, we managed to see the falls from just about every possible angle - except from a tight rope or a barrel! We walked up to each of the many edges of the falls (our previous soaking by the mist was never repeated as it generally tended to stay in the centre of the horseshoe). We also viewed the falls from several other, more commercial angles:

The American "Rainbow" Falls at night - trying to live up to their name

• We started with a spectacular aerial view of the falls during a short helicopter flight.
• There are a number of towers from which you can view the falls and we went up the tallest and probably best positioned one - the Skylon Tower. The views of both falls were fantastic (that is where our picture of the Horseshoe Falls was taken from). We went up again, at night, because the falls were illuminated - as this picture shows.
• We took the famous Maid Of The Mist boat trip which sailed alongside the American Falls before sailing as close as it could safely get to the base of the Horseshoe Falls - right into the spray! We had all been given plastic ponchos to protect us from this dense spray but these were only partially effective as we still got wet.
• While we were still wet from the boat trip we took the Journey Behind The Falls tour. This starts from the building on the right of the Horseshoe Falls. A lift took us deep underground to a tunnel which led out to a viewing platform right at the side of the falls. Once again, we had been issued with ponchos which struggled to protect us from the spray. A few yards back into the tunnel, another one led off behind the falls (hence the name). This had a few "windows" dug through the side which gave a fairly poor view of the falls from behind - just white water rushing past a large hole.

The Cave of the Winds tour. Hurricane Deck is in the lighter circle in the centre.

• Finally, on our last day in Niagara we had what we considered to be the best, and by far the wettest, view of the falls. This was on the Cave Of The Winds tour. We were issued with some serious yellow raincoats that made us look like Norwegian fisherman - but without the beards - so we guessed that this trip was going to be a little wetter than the others. It started from the island between the falls where a lift took us down to a wooden walkway which led to the base of the Rainbow Falls. We then climbed some steps up to the Hurricane Deck, which is a platform built right at the base of a small separate waterfall called the Bridal Veil Fall. The water from this fall bounces off rocks just in front with some of it flying over the platform hitting anyone brave enough to stand on it. It took some guts to convince your body to walk up to the front of this platform as you could hear and see the immense power of the falls in front of you and it looked as if you would be hit with the full force of it (which of course you weren't because most of the water actually went under the platform and what didn't had lost most of its power when it hit the rocks). As you might have guessed, despite the industrial strength raincoats we were wearing, the water still managed to get inside and wet the front of our clothes. If you are wondering why this tour is called Cave Of The Winds - it's because it used to go into a cave behind the falls but this collapsed due to erosion.

Due to hot summers and severely cold winters, Toronto has developed an extensive underground network of walkways which connect most of the shopping centres allowing you to cover a significant portion of the city without leaving this air-conditioned warren. Most of the city's sky-scrapers also connect into this maze of underground pathways by burrowing downwards for a few floors to host a few shops and what seems to be an obligatory food court (presumably to feed their employees). What was remarkable was that this network of paths seemed to be open even when the shops and offices were closed and there was no obvious security other than closed circuit TV and yet it was all so clean and tidy (and surprisingly not full of tramps). In fact the city in general felt like a very safe and pleasant place to live in - although we didn't experience it in winter!

The CN Tower:
At 553m, this is the tallest free standing structure in the world (there must be some reason why they always use the term: "structure" in this claim. Maybe it is because it is really only a tall aerial with a fancy observation deck). Although, surprisingly, no one refers to it as one of the Wonders of the World, I think it deserves some sort of award for maintaining its coveted position ever since it was completed in 1976.

The Skydome, the CN Tower and the Toronto skyline as viewed from a harbour cruise boat.

We picked a very clear day to go up it but we had to queue for a long time for the lift which, eventually, took only 58 seconds to whisk us up 346m to the Sky Pod - the main lump you can see on the tower. We immediately caught another lift to go up a further 100m to the Space Deck - an observation deck located in the bulge you can just see at the base of the white tip. At 447m, this is the highest observation platform in the world (4m higher than the tip of the Empire State Building and with more than 100m of "structure" still above it). We had a great view of the city. However, even from this lofty position, we still couldn't see the other side of Lake Ontario (they claim, on a clear day, it is possible to see the mist plume at Niagara Falls but we couldn't see it even though it was a very clear day).

The Sky Pod contains a number of attractions, the main one being the Ecodeck: a floor dedicated to interactively demonstrating how we are destroying our planet (and, of course, what we can do about it). There was a distinct Canadian bias to this, especially the pollution of the Great Lakes since Lake Ontario is the last in this chain of lakes before the water reaches the Atlantic and consequently is the most polluted of them.

Below the Ecodeck is another observation deck which has an attraction called "The Glass Floor". This, as you might guess, is a portion of the floor made out of glass through which you can see the ground 342m below. It was amusing watching people trying to force themselves to walk on it - some could only manage to crawl and many of them screamed once they were on it.

On the floor above the Ecodeck there is a revolving restaurant (the world's highest of course!) and we ate there a few days later because we wanted to see the view from the tower at night (which was spectacular). The meal was excellent and surprisingly not too expensive. Unfortunately, the service was very fast but we dragged our heels so that we managed a complete revolution.

The dome you can see to the left of the tower is the Skydome - the world's first multi-purpose stadium with a retractable roof. It can be used for American football, baseball, basketball and concerts with the seating and pitch being changed for each event. There was a football game going on when we went up the tower (so we had to fight off the ticket touts on our way) and they had removed the roof so we could see the match in progress from the observation decks.

And Finally...
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