Erie Canalway- Day 2 – Niagara Falls to Buffalo

The hotel offered a breakfast of refined carbs which we took advantage of, but isn’t my preference, and I was hungry again by mid-morning.

Before setting off, we headed to the R. Nathaniel Dett Chapel, which, according to the historic plaque is  “an important community icon (which)… bears witness to the early black settlement of the Niagara region and marks the role of the church in assisting newly arrived Underground Railroad refugees. It was constructed on Murray Street in 1836 and was later rolled on logs to this site. In 1983, the chapel, part of the British Methodist Episcopal Church of Canada, was named for Nathaniel Dett (1882-1943), a parishioner who became an internationally renowned musician and composer of North American sacred music.” 

We then had a lovely descent down Murray Street to the Fallsview Trail.

We rode on the trail for a while after we headed to Fort Erie, but there was very little traffic on the road, other than recreational motorcycle and sports car drivers, and the road was smoother, so we left the trail. 

Dayle felt like her tire was a little soft so we stopped at a shop in Fort Erie, but they were unenthusiastic about helping, and said it would be a while, so we left.

We then saw a restaurant that we had enjoyed on our trip here two years ago, but the kitchen wasn’t open yet, so we headed for the Peace Bridge.

The route I had planned on Ride with GPS indicated we should cross here, but clearly that was not going to happen.

I scanned the QR code, and it brought up a map indicating where we should go and also a Google Maps link. I decided it would be easier to follow the Google Maps instruction and didn’t pay much attention to the map.

Unfortunately, the way it had been set up in Google Maps with three pins meant that it stopped giving us instruction after we reached the second one. We weren’t sure where to go, so we made a left turn where the cars were going and ended up riding across the bridge with the cars. Everyone gave us lots of room, but it was frustrating because we could see, just beyond the 1 m high fence with no gaps, that there was an excellent separated path.

Cindy went up to the border guard first, and I proceeded as she rode away. But she didn’t ride far enough from the booth for his liking and he barked at her to move and when she continued to try to put away her passport, he yelled, “I’m not asking”.  David and Dayle rode up to the booth together, and he wasn’t happy with that either. 

Then, as we paused to get our bearings to figure out how to leave the border plaza, another guard approached us, and asked how we were planning to leave because the only exits were highway exits. He also seemed quite frustrated with us, but in the end, let us through a couple gates so that we could get onto city streets.

Hopefully, anyone else crossing by bike reading this can avoid the mistakes we did.

We passed a large Tim Hortons but didn’t stop. Niagara Parkway has beautiful bi-directional separated bike lanes. Apparently, it’s the first such high-quality bike infrastructure in the city. There are a lot of painted bike lanes here. They have built floating bus stops, and at the pedestrian crossings the median dips down to keep them level. The Giant bike store had this great mural on the side. We stopped, and they happily filled Dayle’s tire.

Buffalo’s population peaked about 1950 at 580k. It is now about 260k. There are many lovely, large homes, but also many rundown areas and abandoned homes, as well.

We dropped our panniers off at the Airbnb and then went for a bike tour of the city.

They now have a bike share, which I didn’t notice when I was here a couple years ago.

A couple years ago, we stayed at the old psychiatric hospital, which has been partially converted into a hotel and conference centre. It’s a beautiful building.

The Airbnb host recommended the restaurant in the Albright Knox Gallery, which was one of the places we were riding past and considering visiting, so we decided to have lunch there.There were multi-use paths from the Richardson Hotel to the Galley.

We saw some bike racks by the street, but preferred something closer to the building. When we couldn’t find anything closer to the building, an employee outside told us there were some racks in the underground parking garageB, but when we got down there, we were told we weren’t allowed to use them because they were for employees. So we thoroughly locked the bikes up the street and went for an excellent lunch.

When I was here a couple years ago, the gallery was undergoing a major renovation. Both the old and new sections of the building are quite beautiful from the outside, and the new reception area is stunning.

There was a huge sculpture made of canoes outside.

We lingered a long time over lunch and decided to continue without going into the gallery. The weather was so beautiful we didn’t want to be inside.

We briefly stopped at Hoyt Lake, where they had boat rentals, including these cute flamingos.

Next, our  route took us up spiral ramps over the highway and into one of Frederick Law Olmstead’s Parks. He also designed Central Park in Manhattan. The parks are connected by parkways, some of which were destroyed by building highways mid last century, but many of which are intact and a pleasure to ride along with their large homes, and trees meeting in the middle of the street.

We rode through Delaware Park, which had very little traffic, and to the Darwin Martin house, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I wrote about it here.

I spotted this mural on Google Maps when I was creating our route for today, so made sure it was on our route.

After that, we rode down of one of Olmstead‘s Parkways. This one has both ways for bikes, but is one way for cars.

Then we rode downtown to see City Hall, which is the second-largest City Hall in the United States. I wrote about it here.

This parking garage was enlivened with murals.

It was after six by the time we got back to the Airbnb. We relaxed for a while and then went out for a dinner on a patio of burgers.

Tomorrow we will do a little more exploring and head to Mile 0 of the Erie Canalway before heading off to Lockport.