Niagara on the Lake 2021 : First Post Pandemic "Vacation" - Day 1

The COVID 19 pandemic, that descended upon the world like a whirlwind on March 2020, wiped out the 3 week trip to Portugal scheduled for spring 2020 that my husband Rich and I had meticulously planned, as well as our 20^th wedding anniversary Baltic Cruise intended for summer 2021.  Instead we have been more or less home-bound for over 19 months.  Making the best of it, we started to vigorously explore the neighbourhoods around our home, discovering new delights that we never noticed before in the decades that we lived in this area.

Now emboldened after receiving our two vaccine doses, we have started to venture farther afield.  At the beginning of September we finally took our first overnight “vacation”, renting an entire house for a 2 night mid-week stay in Niagara on the Lake.  As part of this trip, we wanted to cycle along the Niagara Escarpment, an excursion that I once did annually in my younger days, but which we hadn’t done for multiple years now.  The trick was to find accommodations where we could securely shelter our bicycles, rather than leaving them strapped to our bike rack while parked outside overnight.  We also wanted to make sure that we would have good weather for the activities that we had planned, including cycling, hiking, winery visits and walking around town.  With the wacky weather we currently are experiencing, this meant booking or at least being able to cancel at the last minute.  We looked at various hotels, motels and Bed & Breakfast locations in the vicinity but found little availability.  Those that were available wanted a non-refundable up-front commitment  several weeks in advance when we could not be sure about the weather, and we were still didn't know whether we would be able to stow our bikes there.

Then suddenly the perfect option showed up on Booking.com.  We could rent a 3-bedroom house in the outskirts of Niagara on the Lake, just a 6 minute drive from the historic downtown area.  It offered free cancellation up to the night before our stay, and because we were looking to go mid-week (arriving Wednesday and leaving Friday), it was half the normal rental rate , which in some cases was less expensive than the hotels or motels that we previously looked at.  Best of all, we could safely store our bicycles in a secured area, out of sight in the backyard.  Since there was just two of us with a 3-bedroom house, we decided that we would invite friends to join us.  We asked one set of friends to stay over the first night, joining us for our biking excursion, dinner and a play at the Shaw Festival.  We would have another couple stay with us the second night (in the 3^rd bedroom so that we didn’t have to worry about sheets).  They would join us in touring the downtown and dining at one of the wineries in the area.  The next day, we would check out and make a few more stops on the way home.  As luck would have it, we landed on one of the few times this summer when there were three consecutive days of sunshine.

We headed off early Wednesday morning, getting to the Pie Plate in Virgil, Ontario (just outside of Niagara on the Lake) in time for a leisurely breakfast before meeting our friends Kevin and Olena on the Niagara Escarpment to start our bike ride.  We enjoyed a piping hot cup of coffee, a delicious breakfast brioche containing a gooey egg, bacon and béchamel sauce, topped with cheddar cheese, and a yummy butter tart while sitting in a lovely, enclosed outdoor patio surrounded by plants and flowers.  The food there was so good that we returned the next day to buy sandwiches and a blueberry/cherry pie for lunch, and again on the last day to bring home scones and sausage rolls.  We have decided that this will need to be a regular stop any time we are in this area.

Meeting our friends just south of Fort George, we parked our car at the parking lot across from Kurz Orchards Wedding Centre and took a quick look at this beautiful setting which included a stunning bridge spanning a small pond.  From there we started our ride south on the Niagara Escarpment, following along the Niagara River on the Niagara Parkway Recreational Trail towards Queenston Heights.  This is a really beautiful trail to ride on, with smooth, relatively flat and wide surfaces, surrounded by lush scenery, pretty houses on large acreage, bed and breakfast inns, fruit stands, wineries and the Living Water Wayside Chapel, which looked barely large enough to fit a single adult.

Rather than climbing the extremely steep hill at Queenston Heights to continue towards Niagara Falls, we decided to lock our bikes by the Queenston boat ramp and go for a short hike in the wilderness near the river.  Parts of the trail involved scampering over (or ducking under for the shorter people like me) fallen tree branches  and climbing some minor inclines. Along the way, we saw several birds perched on branches of a tree by the river, although not having an ornithologist or even a bird watcher amongst us, we were unable to identify them.  Since the hike was an impromptu diversion from our bike ride, I did not have proper hiking shoes on, and therefore declined trying to scale steeper, more gravelly hills.  This was an activity planned for the next day when I would be more suitably attired.

Following the hike, we cycled around the streets of Queenston, passing by the Whirlpool Jet Boat Tours launching pad, St. Saviour’s Anglican Church where there was a memorial to General Isaac Brock, hero of the War of 1812, who saved Upper Canada from American invasion, and the Stone Cottage at the corner of Princess St. and Maple St.  Riding back north towards Fort George, we took more time to look at the various styles of houses, which were mostly ranch-styled bungalows, but also included a few modern Bauhaus-like structures, as well as a gorgeous yellow house of Gingerbread architecture that had second floor veranda and a side turret!  We stopped by a small park on the trail where we ate our packed lunches on some benches before continuing back towards Niagara on the Lake.

Cycling past our parked car at Kurtz Orchards, we continued on the Niagara Parkway Recreational Trail beyond Fort George until we were following the northern border of Niagara on the Lake, headed towards Mississauga Beach.  

We saw some fabulous waterfront properties on River Beach Drive and from the shore, we could look across the Niagara River to see Fort Niagara on the American side.  Riding through Queen’s Royal Park, we spotted a pretty gazebo with a weather vane on top. We then rode on a path that literally cut right through the greens of the Niagara on the Lake Golf Club (more on that below), which also led to Fort Mississauga before hitting a boardwalk that continued along the northern edge of the golf course.  The waves from Lake Ontario crashed so violently that we got splashed before we could reach Mississauga Beach at the other end.

On past visits, Rich and I had always cycled up to this golf course and then turned back.  There was no path around it, and it never occurred to us that we could continue through it!  On this trip, our cycling companions advised us that they had actually golfed on this course and saw that the walking and cycling path indeed continued through the greens.  In fact, the path crossed by several tee areas, perpendicularly intersecting the path that a golf ball would travel towards the fairway.  There was a stop sign just before each tee area, instructing pedestrians and cyclists to pause and wait for the golfers to tee off before continuing on the path.  This seemed extremely dangerous to me, but was business as usual for both the golfers and the other people on the path.

After we completed our bike ride and returned to the car, we made our way to the rented house to settle in and prepare for dinner and a show at the Shaw Festival.  On a recommendation from a friend, we had made reservations at Ruffino's Italian Pasta Bar and Grill.  Luckily, we were forewarned not to be put off by the front entry of the restaurant which was located in a sparse strip mall.  Once we were led through the restaurant and out the back, a lovely outdoor patio area was revealed with candle-lit tables covered with red and white checkered table cloths.  The rosé wine selected for dinner was from 2027 Cellars, which we were told was a “virtual winery”, meaning the wine-maker does not own his own vineyard or winery.  We were also told that most of the ingredients for our meal were locally sourced from the chef’s own 2-acre farm as well as other local vendors. This became obvious when we tasted the delicious Caprese salad that included unusual varieties from the over 50 types of tomatoes grown on the farm.  Our calamari fritti was breaded and cooked to perfection.

The rest of the dishes were equally fantastic!  I had scallop risotto with sweet corn and truffle, while Rich had a pizza with fennel sausage, Piacentino salami, cacciatore sausage, and ricotta on a tomato sauce.  Our friends had the grilled veal chop with marsala and mushroom cream sauce with a side of grilled zucchini that was artfully plated, as well as the grilled octopus in a bagna cauda sauce (oil, butter, anchovies, garlic).  To finish off the meal, we really wanted to have lattes (to stay awake for the show after such a large meal!) and tiramisu but did not think we would have time.  Taking pity on us, our server rushed our orders and presented us with our much needed caffeine  and the desserts served whimsically in vintage mismatched teacups and saucers, and vintage souvenir spoons to eat them with.

After dinner we headed to the Shaw Festival to watch a newly conceived “Sherlock Holmes” play called “Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse”.  This would be our first indoor live theatre excursion since the pandemic started, with all attendees required to wear a mask throughout the performance, and only 25% of the seats to be sold.  Available seats were assigned to every other row with large gaps between groups of 2-4 seats.   We waited until the last minute to buy our theatre tickets in order to ensure that our vacation days would be sunny.  Accordingly, there were not many seats left once we were ready to purchase.  We had to decide between sitting next to our friends at the back of the balcony, or each taking closer seats closer to the stage but sitting on opposite sides of the theatre.  We decided that the closer seats were the better option and that we would meet at intermission and after the show.  The next concern was how uncomfortable it would be to wear our masks indoors for several hours while watching the show.  We were both reminded of this need and encouraged by the sculpture of George Bernard Shaw himself, appropriately masked in the lobby.  As it turns out, we have been wearing masks for so many months already that we are now used to the feeling of having our noses and mouths covered.  It therefore wasn’t as bad as it would have been at the beginning of the pandemic.  My main issue was not having difficulty breathing with the mask, but rather trying to hear the actors speaking on the stage below us.  Every time they turned away or lowered their voices, I missed some of the dialogue which I was straining to understand anyways due to the British accents and the quick dialogue.

Copyright of the Shaw Festival

Sherlock Holmes and the Raven’s Curse is a new play by R.Hamilton Wright, who has written several others based on the iconic characters conceived by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  We picked this play because we wanted some light-hearted, fun entertainment to distract us from the stresses and worries of the real world.  For the most part, this was the case as this play featured the usual characters including Holmes, Doctor Watson, Holmes' landlady Mrs. Hudson and his brother Mycroft.  Holmes displays his typical mental and deductive prowess as well as his quirky eccentricities.  But it also introduces a slew of new characters who are part of Holmes’ extended family.  They include his first cousin Beatrice as well as an adopted Chinese cousin Fiona, both of whom he supposedly grew up with.  The women recently lost their father who died under suspicious circumstances not long after the death of their mother.  Holmes and Watson travel to the family estate to investigate the rumour that there is a curse on the  home and the family.

The adopted Chinese cousin Fiona is presented as Holmes’ intellectual equal and potential romantic soulmate.  One of the most entertaining scenes involves the two of them performing fast-paced verbal gymnastics together as they work to solve a mystery.  Yet her presence in the story also seemes like a plot device to highlight some modern-day social issues including sexism and racism.  At one point she gives an impassioned speech about alienation and not fitting in with either the white society that she was adopted into, nor her Chinese heritage.  While this might have been meant to add some depth and “woke-ness” to the play, it seemed out of place within the Sherlock Holmes canon. We commented on how certain earlier scenes that seemed innocuous or even random and non-sequitur would be brought up again in the denouement when Holmes cleverly summed up how he arrived upon his solution.  But the best part of the play was the sets and staging, including the grand old English manor and especially the eerie outdoor scenes featuring a rocky cliff and a rain storm.

At the intermission and during the drive back to the house, we had fun discussing the nuances of the play and comparing the various interpretations by different actors portraying Sherlock Holmes, including a Russian version seen by our Ukrainian friend.   Thus ended a long, action-packed first day of our vacation.  We had earned a good night’s rest before tackling the next  day’s activities.