Nicole and I love our getaways. Its great to see different cities and to see what makes each one special. We share a mutual respect for architecture and we both love to see how different cities live. While being in Chicago we both realized that, even though being in a major city like Chicago is great, we prefer a “medium” city. For me especially, coming home to Buffalo is always a relief. I love this city for so many reasons. When we go away on vacations, we always take one extra day off to recoup before going back to work. We decided to use this day to go exploring downtown on our bikes. Ever since my step dad gave me his old Italian race bike, I have really taken a liking to biking. I bike all over now even if the car is available.
We ended up taking the tour at Buffalo’s City Hall mainly because they told us that by doing so, we would be able to get into areas that we normally wouldn’t be allowed to see, and because its free. We’ve always wanted to check out the observatory on the top floor, but its only open during business hours on week days, and with both of us having jobs, that makes it a bit difficult to get to. The tour was humorous as the guide was an older gentleman who really didn’t seem to know all that much, but he had a knack of pointing out the obvious while making it sound like he was super educated. It was amusing. City Hall was actually really interesting and the tour was, for the most part, worth it. The views from the observatory were amazing. Another thing that was surprising was that we were with an actual group of tourists and one of the girls on the tour just moved here from out of state for a job! When you’re from a city that has been on the decline for over 50 years, it’s nice to see an actual change happening as more and more people rediscover the area.
After the City Hall trip, we took a rode down Main Street to the new noodle bar called “Kaydara“. I have to admit, I wasn’t excited about going to a noodle bar, but this was pretty awesome. The food took forever to come out, but it was really well prepared and fresh. I will definitely be coming back here.
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| These dumplings were solid. I forgot to take a picture of the noodles because I was too busy eating them…because they were delicious. |
To end our afternoon on the town, we wanted to grab a glass of wine somewhere. Unfortunately every place we tried was not quite open yet. So we decided to go to “Caffe Aroma” near our house, a small cafe that has wine, beer, and coffee. Its a great little spot. They had a sign out front promoting hot rum ciders which totally won us over. We were able to have those outside on this cool crisp afternoon. It was really awesome.
To cap off the day, we stopped across the street to the new Gelato place, “Gelateria Luca.” The woman that owns the place was there, and she offered us samples of the Gelato before making a decision. I didn’t need samples, if I see mint and chocolate, I have made my decision. Nicole had the toasted almond. It was really tasty and while sitting there, the woman gave us a sample of some Italian cookies she just pulled fresh from the oven and they were warm and delightful!
Our day off in our city was great and was the perfect way to end our mini vacation. If you are ever coming to the Buffalo area, feel free to ask for some suggestions!
