To cel­e­brate the first big heat wave in Canada this year (yes, get over it — I’m Cana­dian. Half of the year, I com­plain about the cold, and I com­plain about the heat the rest of time. We call it the windchill/ humidex com­plaint here), we decided to drive to Nia­gara Falls thought the USA.

Last time I was there was 2005 but it was in early April and it was still cold (see… told you!) and it just wasn’t the same. This time, we drove across the State of New York and arrived in Nia­gara Falls on the US side. The park by the fall was open and we got very close to the Amer­i­cans Falls.

The first big water­falls I saw, a few years ago, were the Iguazu Falls, at the bor­der of Argentina and Brazil. I had been told not to expect too much from Nia­gara after that but I still find the place amaz­ing. Sure the water­falls aren’t lost in the jun­gle but there’s the noise, the con­stant pow­er­ful water flow, the huge drop… I love it!

The first thing you can’t help notic­ing is the mist. It’s just amaz­ing… water every­where and on part of the prom­e­nade (mostly on the Cana­dian side), peo­ple are almost soaked. The mist hides part of the Cana­dian Nia­gara sky­line when stand­ing on the US side, as you can see below.

These are the Amer­i­can Falls. They drop about 21 meters and are wider than the Cana­dian falls (323 meters).

There is a huge dif­fer­ence between Nia­gara in the US and Nia­gara in Canada. The US side, except for the park near the fall, is pretty shady. The once pros­per­ous town seems now aban­doned Most build­ings spot bro­ken win­dows and a lot are vacant, locals wan­der around and busi­nesses are closed or bank­rupted. On The other side, Nia­gara Ontario is like a mini-Vegas with its casi­nos, five-starts hotels, pricey restau­rants, col­or­ful neon bill­boards and adver­tise­ments min­utes from the falls.

At sun­set, the falls take this deep blue color… just beautiful.

We took a ride in the new Sky­wheel to take pic­tures from the top. At past 11pm, the night was just start­ing in Nia­gara Falls… Peo­ple were already queu­ing at the local bars and dis­cos, kids were play­ing video-games in the numer­ous arcades and the rest of us was just wan­der­ing between Ripley’s and IMAX theatres.

The fol­low­ing day, we headed to Toronto to attend the R.E.M con­cert.

Related arti­cles:

1. Nia­gara Falls In The Winter
2. Nia­gara Falls, Ontario
3. Niagara-on-the-Lake
4. Our South­ern Neighbours
5. Cataratas Do Iguaçu (Brazil Side)