Niagara-on-the-Lake (25 Mins North): 19th-Century Queen Street, Fort George & Shaw Festival

Just 22 kilometres (25 minutes' drive north along the tree-lined Niagara Parkway, described by Winston Churchill in 1943 as 'the prettiest Sunday afternoon drive in the world', or reached by the seasonal Niagara-on-the-Lake Shuttle from the Floral Clock) where the Niagara River empties into vast Lake Ontario sits Niagara-on-the-Lake (abbreviated 'NOTL'). Serving from 1792 to 1796 as the first capital of Upper Canada (Ontario) under the name Newark, it was burned during the War of 1812 and rebuilt immediately after in pristine 1815 to 1850 Regency and Georgian architecture.

1. Walking the Heritage District: Queen Street, The 1866 Apothecary & Gazebo Park

With no neon signs, no fast-food chains and overflowing Victorian flower boxes on every lamp post, Niagara-on-the-Lake feels worlds away from Clifton Hill:

• Queen Street & The 1866 Niagara Apothecary (Free Entry): stroll past the 1922 Clock Tower Cenotaph right in the middle of Queen Street and step inside 5 Queen Street, a restored 1866 Confederation-era pharmacy with black-walnut counters and gold-leaf glass medicine jars. Across the street, enjoy small-batch gelato in waffle cones at Cows Creamery or Il Gelato di Carlotta, browse the year-round Christmas shop (Just Christmas), and book traditional Victorian Afternoon Tea at the 1864 Prince of Wales Hotel.
• Queen's Royal Park & The Lake Ontario Gazebo (5 Mins' Walk North): walk down King Street to the river mouth at Queen's Royal Park: stand inside the white wooden gazebo to look across the 500-metre-wide river mouth at 1726 French-castle Old Fort Niagara on the American shore and across Lake Ontario to the skyline of Toronto.

2. The Shaw Festival Theatres & 1802 Fort George National Historic Site

• The Shaw Festival (April to December): founded in 1962 to celebrate playwright George Bernard Shaw and his contemporaries, this world-celebrated repertory theatre festival stages more than ten productions each season across three walkable theatres right in town.
• Fort George National Historic Site (On the Niagara Parkway): step inside the wooden palisade walls and grassy earthworks of the British Army headquarters that defended Upper Canada in the War of 1812 (where Major-General Sir Isaac Brock dined the night before the Battle of Queenston Heights), complete with fife-and-drum corps and musket demonstrations.