Alter our stop at the visitor centre it was back to strolling down the street and visiting some of the shops.
The Christmas shop was a large double fronted homage to the holiday period and we spent quite some time selecting one of a kind tree decorations, some which were souvenirs of the area, Niagara-on-the-lake, Niagara Falls, Ontario and Canada and some which were able to be personalized for family and friends back home.
The hat shop was amazing with everything from trilbys and straw boaters, berets and cloche hats, to baseball caps, beanie hats and flat caps, with all the sales assistants wearing hats of their choice. We had never seen such a selection but sad to say their prices were very high end, into the $100' s and well beyond our holiday budget, still it was worth a visit and a try on of some of the many hats on offer!
There were plenty of quirky souvenir shops and woman' s clothing shops selling everything from moderately priced shirts to high end clothing by well known Canadian designers such as Frank Lyman and Joseph Ribkoff.
When it came to lunch we were spoilt for choice, everything from full service restaurants offering wonderful lunch menus to bakeries offering sandwiches, pastries and cakes and of course a great choice of ice cream and gelato to be had, either in the eating establishments or in specialized shops dotted along the high street.
We chose a restaurant with a picket fence and window boxes out front which had both a full service menu and a self service section where sandwiches and salads were made to your specifications with a huge choice of bread and fillings a bit like a high end Subway. We made our choices of sandwiches and salads and included soup of the day, seafood chowder, a favourite for all of us before selecting drinks and carrying our trays into the shady garden. The food was lovely but we all fancied something sweet and by now the queue for the self service was quite lengthy and so a visit to the bakery across the street found enough to satisfy the sweet tooth in all of us, especially as they had home made Eccles cakes, as good as those we would find back in the UK.
We would have loved to have spent longer, just pottering around the place but we had plenty on our agenda for the day, including a visit to Fort George, also in Niagara-on-the-lake and a trip to the Falls themselves.
The choice of restaurants and food, however, must have stayed with us, as after a full day we returned to the town in the evening and had a lovely dinner at Orzos where the bifold doors of the restaurant were opened up for us to enjoy a beautiful late summer evening after a wonderful and very full day.
The Christmas shop was a large double fronted homage to the holiday period and we spent quite some time selecting one of a kind tree decorations, some which were souvenirs of the area, Niagara-on-the-lake, Niagara Falls, Ontario and Canada and some which were able to be personalized for family and friends back home.
The hat shop was amazing with everything from trilbys and straw boaters, berets and cloche hats, to baseball caps, beanie hats and flat caps, with all the sales assistants wearing hats of their choice. We had never seen such a selection but sad to say their prices were very high end, into the $100' s and well beyond our holiday budget, still it was worth a visit and a try on of some of the many hats on offer!
There were plenty of quirky souvenir shops and woman' s clothing shops selling everything from moderately priced shirts to high end clothing by well known Canadian designers such as Frank Lyman and Joseph Ribkoff.
When it came to lunch we were spoilt for choice, everything from full service restaurants offering wonderful lunch menus to bakeries offering sandwiches, pastries and cakes and of course a great choice of ice cream and gelato to be had, either in the eating establishments or in specialized shops dotted along the high street.
We chose a restaurant with a picket fence and window boxes out front which had both a full service menu and a self service section where sandwiches and salads were made to your specifications with a huge choice of bread and fillings a bit like a high end Subway. We made our choices of sandwiches and salads and included soup of the day, seafood chowder, a favourite for all of us before selecting drinks and carrying our trays into the shady garden. The food was lovely but we all fancied something sweet and by now the queue for the self service was quite lengthy and so a visit to the bakery across the street found enough to satisfy the sweet tooth in all of us, especially as they had home made Eccles cakes, as good as those we would find back in the UK.
We would have loved to have spent longer, just pottering around the place but we had plenty on our agenda for the day, including a visit to Fort George, also in Niagara-on-the-lake and a trip to the Falls themselves.
The choice of restaurants and food, however, must have stayed with us, as after a full day we returned to the town in the evening and had a lovely dinner at Orzos where the bifold doors of the restaurant were opened up for us to enjoy a beautiful late summer evening after a wonderful and very full day.