Niagara Falls has to be up there on pretty much everyone’s bucket list. Seeing as we were already up in Montreal, it’d be rude not to head over for a visit…

But first, Toronto! This really was a flying visit as we only spent 24 hours in the city. Our haste around the north-eastern portion of our US/Canada roadtrip was fuelled by our keenness to spend lots of time in the glorious National Parks of the west: an area we were leaving to last.

A trip to Toronto is really not complete without a stop at CN Tower. Unbeknownst to us, we happened to be venturing up the tower on Victoria Day, a Canadian national holiday celebrating Queen Victoria’s birthday. As night fell, the view from the top became a sea of fireworks!

The rest of the evening was spent toddling around the city streets without much to report, with the exception of a life-changingly good cheese tart we bought at Uncle Tetsu’s bakery… we scoffed it down before it occurred to me to take a photo, but it’s up there in our legendary foods list for the trip! Tetsu’s is an ever-growing empire of Japanese bakeries specialising in fluffy cheesecakes; fingers crossed they open a branch in London soon.

The next morning followed the foodie theme as we hoovered up more treats in the Kensington Market area of town. To the Londoners amongst you, this neighbourhood is a lot more Shoreditch than it is Kensington; shabby chic storefronts give way to top quality coffee shops, bakeries and eateries. After grabbing our obligatory lattes we sampled tacos from Seven Lives, a North Poke salmon bowl and Torteria San Cosme‘s torta cubana…

Our lunch feast fuelled our next stretch of driving: to Niagara Falls! I bet you all know what they look like, but here’s a bunch of photos of them anyway.

I confess, I had my worries that finally seeing these iconic falls in real life might be anticlimactic. No such trouble though- seeing thousands of litres of icy clear water rushing over the edge of a cliff can’t fail to be impressive! A ride on the Hornblower boat took us up close… this, to me, is the whole point of going to these falls in real life. You get drenched by the spray and truly hear the roar of them, which no video will ever manage to replicate.

After taking the Hornblower boat ride and walking the length of the “Journey behind the falls” tunnels, the only thing remaining to do was to spend dusk at Elements on the Falls, a riverside restaurant with unbeatable views. If you’re travelling all the way to Niagara, it’s really essential to see it both by day, and by night, when some seriously impressive lighting brings it all to life.

Weirdly, Niagara town becomes something of a mini-Vegas at night; streets lined with bars and casinos provide entertainment beyond just gawking at falls, in case you were wondering if there’s anything else to do here. Saving our gambling for the real Vegas, we hit the hay at our campsite a few miles upriver, where we awoke to slightly more fortunate weather: ideal for a few snaps at the very start of our drive down to Chicago!