It was magnificent…but wet. As promised by the tour company, the “thrilling boat adventure” took my husband and me close to the foot of Niagara Falls in Canada.

Too close, if a person wasn’t inclined to get soaked. Like many others, I sought refuge inside when the water started streaming down my jeans. If I ever again take a boat ride to the foot of Niagara Falls, I’ll wear heavy-duty rain gear, not my lightweight all-weather coat and the flimsy plastic poncho handed out by the boat company. Still, despite getting wet, witnessing the sheer power and beauty of Niagara Falls was one of the highlights of the trip.

By the way, my husband lasted a little longer upstairs, exposed to the elements. He’s tougher than I am.

Neither of us had ever seen Niagara Falls from either the Canadian or the US side, so the opportunity to do so was one of the main reasons we signed up for this ten-day tour of eastern Canada. In addition to viewing one of the largest waterfalls in the world, we toured the big cities of Toronto, Ottawa, Quebec City, and Montreal.

Toronto was first on the agenda. The largest city in Canada, it’s the capital of the province of Ontario, but not the capital of the country. I also learned that the natives don’t pronounce the second “t” in Toronto but rather say, “Torono.” The things you learn when you travel!

Although Toronto definitely has a big-city, modern vibe with all the skyscrapers and bustling traffic, there are areas that speak of its history. We toured the Distillery District, walking on cobblestone streets and viewing Victorian-style industrial buildings, which today house restaurants, bars, and boutiques.

There are more than 40 heritage buildings in this district, making it the largest collection of Victorian-era industrial architecture in North America.

On a free afternoon, my husband and I also explored Kensington Market, considered the bohemian area of Toronto. Many of the charming Victorian homes there have been repurposed into shops selling all kinds of products.

The CN Tower is definitely a tourist attraction. We posed here for the obligatory photo, taken by our guide who lay prone on the sidewalk to get just the right angle.

The CN (Canadian National) Tower, at 1,815.3 feet high, is the tallest free-standing land structure in North America. In 1995, the American Society of Civil Engineers designated it one of the modern Seven Wonders of the World.

What We Ate: Before this trip to Canada, I researched food common to the area and tried to sample it when possible. In Montreal, we ate peameal bacon sandwiches for lunch one day followed by butter tarts for dessert.

The peameal bacon sandwich, officially declared Toronto’s signature dish, is really a simple concoction. It’s made of a slab of what the Canadians call peameal bacon with a spread of mustard on a Kaiser bun. I’m told peameal bacon is a wet-cured, unsmoked pork loin that today is dipped in cornmeal and griddled. Originally, ground yellow peas were used for the coating rather than cornmeal, hence the name.

Butter tarts can be filled with either raisins or pecans. We chose the pecan option, which looked and tasted exactly like a bite of good ol’ Southern pecan pie. Yep, delicious.

The tea in the picture came out of a can. Oh well, it was the only iced tea option at the time.

Flowers: Everywhere we went on this tour of eastern Cananda in late September was in full bloom! At a time when my sun-scorched, parched flowers back home were giving up the ghost, the landscape here looked like a magazine spread. Maybe it’s the right combination of precipitation and temperature. I’ll have to ask AI.

Here’s a sampling of the flower-lined streets and buildings in Niagara on the Falls, a charming little town near the Falls itself. We ate lunch here in a Mom and Pop diner before returning to Montreal (another peameal sandwich for me).

In my next post–or maybe two–I’ll talk about what we saw (and ate!) during the rest of our tour of eastern Canada.