Your Niagara Falls Information Resource

2007-01-05T08:03:00.000-08:00

Get Wet: Take an Adventure Vacation to Niagara Falls

Author: Charles Brown

Tip! Our lunch stop was at Rockway Glen Golf Course and Estate Winery, a rather unusual combination offering delights for golfing and wine enthusiasts. We had a reasonably priced lunch of gourmet sandwiches on the patio, and appropriately strenghtened continued on our way along the wine route towards our next destination: Niagara Falls.

This was one occasion that I was a reluctant traveler. I had seen this place in movies, History Channel specials and pictures in books, so I assumed there was nothing more for me to see.

But the rest of my family wanted to go, so I drove them all to western New York State to see Niagara Falls. I was certain I would be bored into a comatose stupor within thirty minutes…after all, it was just water running over a cliff.

As we got within a few miles of the falls, I began to hear a low sound that at first crept up on me like the white noise of a machine you aren't aware is on until it suddenly shuts off. But as we got closer, I became more aware of the sound.

It was a deep roar that was set at a constant bass note and I finally realized what I was hearing. It was the same sound that caused Jesuit missionary, Louis Hennepin heard in 1678, to investigate its source and become the first westerner to see the Niagara Falls.

This sound was what made me begin to grasp the enormity of the falls and started me thinking this just might be a little more than some water running over a cliff.

When we finally got to the railings at the edge of the falls, I was completely hypnotized, and I remained hypnotized for hours. At one moment my eyes would gaze at the entire vast panorama of falling water from the American side to the Canadian side, about a mile across. Then my eyes would just focus on the edge itself as 42 million gallons of water passed over every minute. Then they would gaze down at the swirling cloud of mist that rose up from the base. And then I would look up river at the rushing water moving inexorably toward the crest.

Tip! During summer, Niagara Falls draws the highest number of visitors. After dark, floodlights illuminate both sides of it until midnight, from the Canadian side.

But it was the edge that held my gaze the most. I kept thinking, every single drop of water in the four western Great Lakes will eventually pass over this crest, flowing into the eastern Lake Ontario.

On the American side, the town of Niagara, New York is a seedy little burg that reminded me of an old carnival, long past its prime. Its heyday was in the 1950s when Niagara Falls was the number one honeymoon location for every couple in western world.

On the Canadian side, however, everything is clean, modern and reminded me of a park land. The Canadians are friendly, and offer a much better experience in every way. They host a thriving nightlife, restaurants, upscale hotels and the Casino Niagara.

Tip! We try to time dinner with the lightening of Niagara Falls which is at sundown. There is a wonderful restaurant directly across from the falls.

If you don't mind getting wet, you can take a ride on the famous Maid of the Mist, a very sturdy boat that holds 600 passengers and will take you into the mist below the falls. And let me point out, those plastic raincoats they hand out are essential.

Another way to see the falls is from behind. Take the Journey Behind the Falls tour down a 150 elevator into a series of man-made tunnels that allow you a view of the falls passing over your head.

Tip! There is so much to do and see in Niagara Falls, you will need more than one day.

As we drove back home that evening, every other family member fell asleep and I was left alone with my thoughts. Calling Niagara Falls just a water fall is like calling the Grand Canyon a hole in the ground or the Rocky Mountains just some hills.

If you ever find yourself within two or three hundred miles of Niagara, you owe it to yourself to make a daytrip to see these magnificent falls. It's spell is nothing short of hypnotic and you will come home having just as much difficulty trying to capture the experience in words as I am having here. But it will still be worth the drive.

Tip! Niagara Falls Hotel Discounts Discounted Falls view rooms, Jacuzzi, fireplace and family suites. Great package deals, next to Fallsview Casino and attractions. Stay and save.

Think budget travel equals boring travel?

Think again! Learn the Guerrilla Traveler's insider secrets to budget adventure travel to the world's most exciting places and experience the coolest travel adventures without spending a bundle.

Charles Brown is a former attorney who now spends his time indulging his passion for travel and shares the unique travel destinations and adventure travel bargains he uncovers on his blog, Guerrilla Traveler - Adventure on a Budget.

http://www.guerrillatraveler.blogspot.com

2006-12-15T14:57:00.000-08:00

Celebrate New Years Eve in Niagara Falls, Ontario

Author: Andrew Regan

Celebrating the New Year in a new and exciting environment is highly desirable - and one of the main bi-products of the increasing number of cheap flights and greater global mobility is that this is becoming more and more possible. People living in Chicago can now choose to celebrate the New Year in Edinburgh, Sydney or Paris; however, you dont have to travel quite so far away from home to enjoy a spectacular party on December 31st. Visit the Winter Festival of Lights being held in Clifton Hills, in Niagara Falls, Ontario this year and youll be able to count down to the 1st of January in style.

Clifton Hills is the major tourist promenade in the town of Niagara Falls, and this years New Years Eve festivities will involve performances by 1980s legendary rock band, Foreigner, the Juno Award winning Colin James and the Little Big Band, and rising Canadian talent Justin Hines. Party in Niagara is organised every year by the Niagara Parks Commission and the Niagara Falls New Years Eve event planners provide party-goers with an outdoor alcohol licensed area, food and drink stalls, and fantastic fireworks over the Niagara Falls waterfalls at both 9pm and midnight.

Best of all, the event is free; held in Queen Victoria Park, it attracts around 30,000 people each year. The event is also covered on television and is screened from 11pm until 12.30am. Jim Williams, chair of the Niagara Parks Commission stated:

'New Years Eve is one of Niagara Falls busiest and best nights of the year. With the enthusiasm of all our partners, the whole city is coming alive with more to do than anywhere else in Canada. Visitors and residents should come down and enjoy our entire tourism district in full swing - from great music in Queen Victoria Park to high-energy gaming at Casino Niagara and Fallsview Casino Resort; from the family fun of Clifton Hills to our romantic restaurants and spectacular hotel getaways.'

If youre looking to turn your New Years Eve celebrations into an extended holiday youll find plenty of accommodation in Niagara Falls. Whether you choose to spend your time exploring the worlds most impressive waterfall or roaming around the Fallsview tourist area, youll definitely find activities to entertain you and your family in Niagara Falls - and you wont even have stray too far away from home.

About the Author:

Andrew Regan is a freelance online journalist who enjoys travel and experiencing different cultures.

2006-12-15T14:54:00.000-08:00

Niagara Falls For Love – The Sheraton On The Falls Resort

Author: Kriss Hammond
Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com

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Founded by Henry D. Parker in 1855, the Omni Parker House (then known as simply The Parker House) has been a Boston resident for over 150 years, located at the junction of Tremont and School Streets, and one of the oldest of Boston's elegant inns. and the longest continuously operating hotel in the United States. It was here that the brightest lights of America's Golden Age of Literature—writers like Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, and Longfellow, regularly met for conversation in the legendary nineteenth century Saturday Club.
Baseball greats like Babe Ruth and Ted Williams wined, dined, and unwound at the Parker House. And it was here too, where generations of local and national politicians, including Ulysses S. Grant, James Michael Curley (Boston's Mayor of the poor), Franklin Delano Roosevelt, John F. Kennedy, and William Jefferson Clinton, assembled for private meetings, press conferences, and power breakfasts.

The Omni Parker House is close to Boston's Theater District, and it has played an important role for thespians. Many of the finest actors from the nineteenth century made the hotel their home away from home, including Charlotte Cushman, Sarah Bernhardt, Edwin Booth, brother of the matinee-idol, John Wilkes Booth, who was seen pistol practicing nearby only eight days before the assassination of Abraham Lincoln; wouldn't you know it would be an actor jumping onto a stage in his last great performance at the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C. During the twentieth century, stage, screen, and television stars, from Joan Crawford, Judy Garland, and William ('Hopalong Cassidy') Boyd, to Adam 'Batman' West, Kelsey Grammer (Cheers was started in Boston as a local pub.), David Shiner and the cast of 'Seussical, the Musical', made the hotel their home.

The kitchens of the Parker House made Americana culinary culture a mainstay, with talented bakers who invented the famed Parker House roll. Parker's has also been the training ground for internationally known chefs.

The Omni Parker House's
restored lobby with original
heirlooms, giving it a
museum ambiance.

The Omni Parker House is located on today's Boston Freedom Trail, and it is a museum of its own in a way. Even though it has twenty-first century amenities, it still retains its nineteenth century charm and history. The lobby, bar-lounges, and restaurant are still armored with the dark wood hues, the elevators are freshly burnished bronze, while the walls are vintage American oak. When walking to my room I had to stop and view the numerous paintings on the hallways, a living museum, indeed. Crystal chandeliers glow in the lobby as a bus group was checking out. The lobby is a vibrant living landmark, more like a private clubroom, with many more exquisite paintings surrounding the museum goers—I mean guests.

The corner of Tremont and School is as old as Boston itself. In 1630, Englishman John Winthrop and the Puritans of the Massachusetts Bay Colony first settled in the area, naming the peninsula Trimount, after the three hills—Beacon, Premberton, and Mount Vernon—dominating the landscape. The name was changed to Boston to honor the Lincolnshire town that many of the pilgrims had departed,. After the three mountains were leveled Tremont Street was laid out at the base of the hills and Boston Common. The location and name of School Street originated in Puritan times, as well. From 1635-1636, the British colonists established a college in nearby Cambridge (Harvard). By 1645 the prep school, America's first public school, was housed in a cabin on what would be know as School Street. The school was later known as Boston Latin, and it educated a host of Boston's elite, including Sam Adams, John Hancock, Charles Bullfinch, and Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ben Franklin was a dropout. Parker's Bar now sits where the old cabin was located.

Lieutenant Colonel George Washington was known to frequent the many taverns that sprung up on School Street; two colonial-era buildings still stand—King's Chapel, a rough-hewn granite church completed in 1754, and the Old Corner Bookstore building, constructed in 1718 as an apothecary.

With remodeled 551 rooms
and 21 suites, The
Omni Parker House
enters its third century.

The concept of a 'hotel' is a fairly recent one. In colonial Boston, travelers found rest and refreshment not in hotels or motels, but at local taverns and inns. Women were rarely on the road, so colonial males usually frequented the roadside taverns. They often even shared beds after quaffing pints of colonial beer. I guess after too many pints they began the foment for freedom and the rise of a radical cause—Independence.

The earlier hotels were known as 'houses.' As more travelers arrived in Boston by coach or ship, lodging and dining houses bore patriotic names like American House, The Shawmut, the Adams, and The Revere House. The resident houses were genteel and sometimes luxurious, and some began to even accommodated ladies!

In the midst of this period of expansion and change, a 20-year-old farm boy named Harvey D. Parker arrived in Boston Harbor on a packet from Maine. The year was 1825, and with less than one dollar in his satchel, he was in immediate need of employment. His first job was as a caretaker for a horse and cow, which gave him eight dollars a month. Then as a coachman for a wealthy Watertown woman, he was set up on his career path.

Whenever Parker trotted the horse-drawn coach into Boston, his noon meal was at a dark, cellar café on Court Square, owned by John E. Hunt. By 1832, the ambitious Parker bough Hunt's café for $432, and renamed it Parker's Restaurant. A combination of excellent food and service won over a regular clientele of businessmen, lawyers, and newspapermen. By 1854 he embarked on a grander enterprise.

His plan was to build a new, first class hotel and restaurant at the School Street base of Beacon Hill, just down the road from the domed Massachusetts State House. Parker purchased the former Mico Mansion and razed the decrepit boarding house. In its place, Parker built an ornate, five story, Italianate-style stone and brick hotel, faced with gleaming white marble. The first and second floors featured arched windows, while marble steps led from the sidewalk to the marble foyer within. Once inside, thick carpets and fashionable horsehair divans completed an air of elegance. Above the front door, an engraved sign read simply, 'Parker's.' Even visiting British author Charles Dickens marveled at the splendor of Boston's finest new hotel.
To read this entire feature FREE with photos cut and paste this link:
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Jetsetters Magazine Editor – Read Jetsetters Magazine at www.jetsettersmagazine.com To book travel visit Jetstreams.com at www.jetstreams.com and for Beach Resorts visit Beach Booker at www.beachbooker.com

About the Author: Kriss Hammond, Jetsetters Magazine Correspondent. Join the Travel Writers Network in the logo at www.jetsettersmagazine.com

Provided By: Travel and Leisure