While admiring Niagara Falls, we crossed the bridge back into the U.S., where the rest of our road trip around the Great Lakes continued into Buffalo, New York. Like majority of the pit-stops on this trip, I had zero expectations for this city. I really had no idea what we were going to find here other than offerings of wings, which we surprisingly didn't even try! Also to our surprise, we ended up lingering a little longer than expected in this city!
We rolled into town around lunch time, meaning we were hungry. I had read Buffalo was a cheap foodie's paradise and had restaurants-a-plenty on Allen street. By the time we parked and started walking, we were basically starving, taking up the first local restaurant on radar. I don't have any photos, but I scarfed down a philly and I don't remember when Torsten got, but it was inferior and he somehow managed to haggle that we split and share our meals. He's sneaky like that.
Our biggest impression of Buffalo was the...erm, unique architecture. The only city that has rivaled it so far for the most, we'll say, "interesting" city's architecture we've seen so far has been Rotterdam, and that's a whole other level of strange! I'll get to that in a few weeks if you keep up on the Euro road trip I just started posting about ;)
We started off by checking out the City Hall and surrounding area. The City Hall itself was something. Torsten nor myself could decide if we liked it's strange combination of Art Deco with native accents. It was awkward, but not nearly awkward as it's neighboring City Court Building. One look walking into that building and you already feel like you're going to a penitentiary. The only sign of natural light possibly shining into the large, intimidating building were slivers of windows down the side.
This building I was actually quite fond of, no idea it's purpose as we were just wandering around the vacant downtown at this time. I couldn't stop staring at the mirrored windows or intricate details covering the entire exterior!
In typical Great Lakes road trip fashion, the day would not have been complete without a beautiful sunset over the water. We came just in time to watch the rowers return from the lake while their form was silhouetted by the last rays of sun.
Before we got cozy in the van for the night, we had one last anticipated sight to see; The Peace Bridge. Best known for travel between the U.S and Canada... and of course it's color changing lights! We parked the van and walked along a sidewalk that goes under the bridge, admiring the transitions of colors and it's reflection of the rushing, and litter-infested, water.
The next day we decided to check out the old war ships and submarine at The Buffalo Naval Park. Between it's museum and the ships, we spent houuuurrrs longer here than expected! One of my favorite parts was in the museum, where there were posters of old vets and their personal WWI and WWII stories. The ships and sub have a self-led tour that was more than we were expecting to see. They're even pretty generous about letting you climb around and get some interesting perspectives. As you can see, Torsten definitely had some fun with it!
We'd only planned to spend a couple hours at the Naval Park, though it was already late afternoon by the time we left. It gave us just enough time to hit the road and enjoy the last few hours of daylight in this gorgeous Pennsylvanian State Park!
Up Next on the Great Lakes Road Trip;
Cleveland, Ohio
Cheers!
Cheers!
