Horses and Lions: Riding the Hand-Carved Carousel at Port Dalhousie

Lakeside Carousel at Port Dalhousie

With the usual 401/QEW traffic on the weekends (or any day for that matter!), we decided to make it all about the journey and not the destination. So, before heading for Niagara Falls, we stopped by St. Catharines to check out their famous carousel at Port Dalhousie.

I have heard of and even gone on free midway rides in some festivals, but I have never heard of carousel rides still at 5c a ride. It must be a joke or it must be old info that I saw. But it was no joke—it truly still was 5c a ride! So ride we did! It was a lot of fun as we usually don’t go with the kids on carousel rides (more fun since it cost us only a quarter with grandma riding as well!).

Nothing can beat 5c a ride @ Lakeside Park Carousel

The Lakeside Carousel was hand-carved sometime between 1898 and 1905 by Charles Looff’s factory in Brooklyn, NY. It has 68 animals—not only fancy horses (which apparently has real horsehair tails!) but also camels and lions, along with chariots. The accompanying music was played by an antique organ with uses a system of paper music rolls. Hubby rode one of the five existing Looff lions in all of North America and it was the only one that has its head turned to watch the onlookers! I, of course, chose one of the horses which go up and down :)

Apart from this famous carousel, we just walked along the Lakeside Park beach (unsafe for swimming) and admired the lighthouses (built in the late 1800’s). This is a good place to relax if you have an hour to spare (or even less) in the area.

Getting a Fix at Chocolate F/X

Chocolate F/X Niagara on the Lake

Taking side roads from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Niagara Falls, we chanced upon this Chocolate factory in St. Davids . It looked quite similar to the Lake Champlain one in Vermont so we decided to take a detour. Okay, okay, we would have detoured for any chocolate factory anyway.

The girls headed straight and stayed mostly at the chocolate tasting bar to decide which ones we should get. We also checked out the chocolate production viewing area but skipped on the tours. They use the panning method of coating which was used by the Ancient Egyptians and which has become an artisan standard of excellence.

They have pretty much everything chocolate you can think of--fruits, nuts, truffles, molded chocolate, gift baskets, etc. They even sell chocolate mulch! I was super-tempted to buy so that my backyard will smell like chocolate but I didn’t want my backyard friends (Mr. Racoon and Squirrel family) to enjoy their stay in our yard as well!

We ended up getting some blueberry chocolate balls, macaroons and peanut butter & banana balls. I wouldn’t say it was cheap at $8.00 for 265g, but well, it was good and artisan…and, I just figured it was like subsidizing everything the girls “tasted” at the chocolate bar. 

Goodies from Chocolate F/X @ Niagara on the Lake

They were delicious! Well, as they say: if you can't dip it in chocolate, it's not worth eating!