Visiting
Hospitality and tourism has attracted numerous visitors to the area for more than 150 years primarily thanks to Niagara Falls. New development beginning during the mid-1990s has spun off an upscale hospitality boom throughout the whole Niagara Peninsula.
Today, more than 10 million guests visit the peninsula annually to see the beauty of the Falls and the Niagara Parks. Ecotourism has become more popular with more people finding and exploring out of the way places such as the Niagara Escarpment, named a world Biosphere Reserve by UNESCO in 1990.
Another area of major tourism growth in the past thirty years has been the expansion of the grape and wine industry. The Niagara Peninsula is one of four recognized viticultural areas by the VQA in the Ontario wine industry. The many European style wineries and vineyards have played a major role in attracting visitors seeking a unique cultural experience. Most of the local wineries offer full tours of their facilities with a few offering onsite dining featuring unique Canadian cuisine paired with their own VQA vintages. It is common for many of these wineries' world-class chefs to use fresh ingredients that are grown or acquired from local farms in season. Some wineries also feature live music and theatrical performances in the vineyard during the summer months. Visitors come during the coldest months of the year (usually December to February) to watch some varieties of grapes being harvested and pressed outdoors in the vineyard as part of the process of creating the sweetest, and among the most expensive, wine on earth - Ice Wine. A few Niagara Peninsula wineries have won the most prestigious international awards for their Ice Wine products, many of which are only available from the vintner.
There is an official Wine Routes Guide for those that wish to self-drive while transportation companies offering wine tours operate out of major hotel and bed and breakfast establishments in Niagara Falls, Niagara-on-the-Lake and Toronto. (Driving from downtown Toronto to the Niagara wine region is about two hours).
Another major attraction for the well travelled looking for cultural activities is the famous Shaw Festival Theater (named for playwright George Bernard Shaw) located in the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake. A resident repertory company of actors uses three theatres during a six-month season. Niagara-on-the-Lake is also the location of Fort George, Ontario, a British built and occupied fort during the War of 1812. It was rebuilt for the public during the 1960s and is open during the summer months. Other key historical locations nearby include: Brock's Monument, the Laura Secord Monument and the battlefield sites of Battle of Queenston Heights, Battle of Lundy's Lane and Battle of Chippawa.
Read more about this topic: Niagara Peninsula
Famous quotes containing the word visiting:
“I have no connections here; only gusty collisions,
rootless seedlings forced into bloom, that collapse.
...
I am the Visiting Poet: a real unicorn,
a wind-up plush dodo, a wax museum of the Movement.
People want to push the buttons and see me glow.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
“According to legend, Dr. Sappington purchased his coffin several years before his death and kept it under his bed, with apples and nuts in it for his visiting grandchildren.”
—Administration in the State of Miss, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“Mrs. Sneed and her daughter, Miss Austine Sneed, are visiting us—Washington correspondents of excellent character.... We are much interested in their accounts of Washington affairs. Nothing could be further from our desire than to return to Washington and again enter its whirl, either socially or politically, but we are interested in seeing Washington with the roof off.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)