There is so much more beyond the Falls on the US side... During our first year here we never realized that and had always stopped at the Falls themselves or went over to the Canadian side. But let us now explore the North side of the Falls, with beautiful autumn foliage! Click on thumbnails to see full-size pictures.

         

The city of Lewiston is about 15 minutes drive from the Falls either by the thruway (I-190) or by a scenic Robert Moses Parkway (much more pleasant). Lewiston's main attraction nowadays is the Art Park. One can have different opinions about the artwork on display outdoors there but it's main stage hosts some good concerts during summer time. In September my wife and I came there to listen to B.B.King and Jeff Beck. It was splendid, especially that part where they performed jointly!
  

But the main thing is, of course, Mother Nature. The Niagara gorge is really beautiful! And salmon goes up the river from Lake Ontario in October, providing a lot of fun (and challenge) to those who like fishing. For both Russians and Japanese salmon roe (cured in salt or in soy sauce) is a superb delicacy (red caviar). We could not resist trying to catch some salmon, of course. Although we didn't catch any (it is quite hard to fish in the rapid Niagara stream without enough practice) we nevertheless got a lot of eggs from other fishermen (who basically have no use for them apart from using them as bait). Bon Appetit!...
                 

Vow! I have never seen so much red caviar in my whole life! But for those of you who don't care, there is also apple-picking, of course. This time we enjoyed U-pick apples along the Lower Lake road running alongside the coast of Lake Ontario. Apple trees are on both sides of the road!
                       

Click on thumbnails below to see how beautiful the foliage is! The third picture from the left was taken around "Devil's Hole", so called because of extremely fast current. The right-most picture is a close-up of the "whirlpool". The river takes a big bend there and creates a whirlpool as the current, flowing at a high speed from the Falls has to make a sudden right turn.
     

The delta of Niagara river is just some 5 more miles to the North. Fort Niagara, a site of one of the battles for Independence stands there and has a museum. And you can see the siluette of a big city on the other side of Lake Ontario. That is Toronto.