How to reach Niagara Falls and what to see along the journey starting from New York. An exciting journey, even historical, of Niagara Falls, read the post.
My journey to the Niagara Falls it started on a cool September morning in New York, aboard a bus for an organized trip. From New York to Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, they are approx 640 kilometers on Interstate 80, which begins in New Jersey and ends in the city of San Francisco in California, passing through New York State, Pennsylvania and then New York again.
Along the way we stopped in the town of Watkins glen, in Schuyler County, called the county of wine. The most valuable product is theice wine, a type of winter wine. The grape harvest in fact takes place in the months of January and February.
The town overlooks Seneca Lake, and is known for Watkins Glen State Park, the most famous of the Finger Lakes state parks. Watkins Glen State Park occupies an area of three kilometers, and the river that crosses it descends for one hundred and twenty-one meters, generating nineteen waterfalls along its path.
We arrived in the city of Niagara Falls, Canadian side, in the late afternoon, and although the following day awaited us on board the Maid of the Mist, the ferry that almost touches the falls, we walked along the banks of the river and the falls. The current generated by the river is so strong that when the water flows into the falls, it generates a cloud similar to fog and drops of water fall to the ground on passersby.
The lakes Erie and Ontario generate the falls with the Niagara River. The latter originates from Lake Erie, flows into Ontario, and from there continues into the San Lorenzo River, up to the Atlantic Ocean. Lake Erie is located near Buffalo. Lake Ontario in Canada is as big as Denmark. Made up of fifty percent fresh water, together with the Upper Lakes, Huron and Michigan, they occupy an area equal to England.
The falls fall for fifty-five meters, the largest part, called the horseshoe, is seven hundred and seventy meters long, moving two thousand and a half liters of water. This also generates a lot of erosion. In fact, half a meter of land is lost every year. As a safeguard, two power plants have been built that remove water from the river, before it reaches the falls, and convey it to artificial lakes to power a turbine system. According to scholars, the falls have moved, and in about fifteen thousand years, they will have disappeared completely.
The Niagara River also serves as a border between the United States and Canada, marking the longest border between two states, about four thousand kilometers. From the Canadian side it is possible to admire the American Falls at its best, with the smallest defined bridal veil.
Curiosities about Niagara Falls
The falls were the scene of a story in October of the early twentieth century, when Annie Edson Taylor he tried to secure financial certainty with the feat of the century, the leap of the waterfall. He voluntarily chose to lock himself in an oak barrel with iron rings, and to throw himself into the falls, to reach the shore and come out unscathed. But first he tested it with his cat, who came out safe and sound.
