Travel
/ April 2017

The Butterfly Castle

If Zoey could live here she would. We weren’t sure about whether or not we should visit the Butterfly Conservatory in Niagara Falls. But after reading a few reviews online that said it was very warm. We decided it would be a nice break from the freezing weather! I am SO glad we did because it was a major hit with Zoey.

You walk into this giant greenhouse and instantly are surrounded by beautiful butterflies everywhere. They are ‘tame’, I guess, some of them at least. If you put your finger in front of a resting one they will climb right on your hand. One of the workers showed Zoey how to do this so she could hold a butterfly. Or two or three, or a hundred. There is a beautiful path that weaves through this jungle, rainforest garden. It is warm and humid. But they spray cool mist in the air every 15 minutes or so. You don’t get too hot.

The best part was this area of the conservatory where you could see the butterflies emerging from their cocoons. When they come out their wings are crinkled and not quite ready to fly. They rest for a little while their wings dry. Every half hour or so a worker opens the glass and lets all of the newly born butterflies fly free. Zoey loved when she was invited to come watch as the butterflies flew for the first time. An employee there even helped her hold a giant butterfly. It wasn’t quite ready to fly and sat on her arms for a good 2-3 minutes.

We must have walked around the whole thing five times and I told Zoey it was time to go. She looked at me with the most desperate face and said, “Please mommy can I take a butterfly home with me! Please, PLEASE!”. I wanted to say yes soooo bad haha. It ended in us tearfully exiting the Butterfly Conservatory and Zoey grabbing the wings of a butterfly as we left, just in time for an employee there to see her. That was awkward. But other than the whole not being able to live there aspect of it, it was definitely a huge highlight of our trip to Niagara Falls.