9/24–Montreal tour and then home

Time to say goodbye.  Aw. We’ve really enjoyed this trip – and Azamara is a great line, but now it is time to disembark and head home.  We had a pretty large onboard credit, which was hard to spend because, well, everything was included! So, we ended up booking a tour that ended at the airport today.  Nice way to waste the hours we have before our 3:30 flight – and it was basically free (well, you know).

The morning however got off to a rough start.  The luggage wasn’t ready in the terminal, so unless you were walking off with bags in hand, we all got stuck at the exit doorway.  There is a huge line up there, and we are all joking and messing around – and people keep coming up – looking at us, then trying to go outside to get off the ship. We tell them they can’t get off, the luggage isn’t ready (duh, why do you think we are all standing here?), but nobody listens.  They walk out, then immediately turn back around and come back in. Virtually all of them tell us “the luggage is not ready yet.”  This ensues for a while, as about 10 of us continue to find the behavior a cross between hysterically funny and startlingly annoying.

Finally, even though the staff still says they aren’t quite ready, we head out into the terminal.  For our purposes, they actually are ready – and all our bags are where they are supposed to be.  We grab the cases, and wheel them out to the waiting bus, say goodbye to Michael, the ever so helpful and totally wonderful excursion guy – managing to snag the seats right behind the tour guide.  Cool.  Although being up front sometimes gives you glimpses of things you might not want to see, as in the wrench that is used for…well…the ignition switch? Not too sure…

We’ve got almost everyone on the bus, and then the old couple arrive, who can barely walk, and he tries to get onto the bus and his knee gives out.  So, he’s sitting on the ground, with everyone around him, and finally he gets on the bus – we give up our hard won seats – because – well really?  We might be getting older – but we aren’t that old and we can walk – and quite frankly, we are the only ones who even bothered to move.  We aren’t in the back of the bus, so who cares. 

Finally, off we go on our quick tour of the highlights of Montreal.  But first, we have to sit through the traffic!  And the train! We are leaving the port when a freight train crosses the road, and crosses, and crosses…and…well, for about 10 minutes we sit watching this thing block the road going forward then reverse – heaven knows why!  All the while our tour guide is regaling us with the story of the tour he had yesterday where the bus broke down and stranded the tour for about an hour and a half before they could be on their way.  He’s telling us this to make our situation better, but…not something you want to tell a bus load of people who need to be at the airport for flights while they are riding in a bus that uses a wrench as dashboard equipment!

We finally get underway and tour around the Olympic stadium area, while hearing about what a basic boondoggle it was/is/has become.  It’s a very intriguing structure, the big white domed arena with the oddly soaring tower attached.  There is a funicular that goes up the outside of the tower to an observatory at the top – but it may be under construction at the moment.  The arena is hardly used for any events because the roof has issues, and people are afraid of the structure of the building. Particularly in the winter (ala the Minnesota Viking’s stadium roof collapse).  They’ve been doing repairs, and you can see where they have guide wires to help support the roof and the tower, but there is some concern over the funding of repairs.  The tower itself has been empty since they built it 30 years ago – seriously! – but the city has just signed a lease with a company to take over the space .  Good news, except there are $60 million worth of repairs to do before they can move in (a huge hunk of that coming from the city).

Past the stadium we wind our way around the massive construction projects (with a running commentary from our hysterically funny guide who is just totally annoyed with all the construction!) to arrive at the top of Mount Royal for a photo op overlooking the city.  Five minutes!  Chop, chop people! We are on a schedule!  Ed stays on the bus while I hop out for a few shots. You can see the stadium in the distance there…

Back on the bus, we head down the mount, and into the city proper for our tour of Notre Dame.  We have to park a few blocks away (oh horrors – half the bus may not make it up to the cathedrale!), so we all walk at our own speed and congregate in the Place d’Armes for a little overview of the area.  We’ve just been here, but it is interesting to listen to the history, and to know for a fact that that building in the corner is a replica of the Empire state building!  Looked awfully familiar…

We head off into the Cathedrale, which is swarming with people on this Saturday morning.  It is a beautiful church, and we spend a few minutes taking pictures….

…use the facilities, then wait outside in the sunshine for the tour to regroup.

Back to the bus we troop, and then off we go to the airport. Short tour – but perfectly timed for us.  We had nothing to do but sit at the airport!  We get stuck, predictably, in more traffic on the interstate. This place is awful for traffic! And of course the construction doesn’t help.  People on the bus start grumbling about the time, and they have to catch their flight.  Huh?  You weren’t supposed to be on this tour if you had flights earlier than 3:00pm – these people are saying they have 2:00pm flights—or earlier.  Your bad! 

We end up at the airport a little before noon – so no one has any issues – unless they make them for themselves.  We check in – totally forgetting to ask about the possibility of going stand by on the 12:45 flight (although Delta charges for going stand by now, so it may not have been our best option!), and head into the terminal, through customs and immigration in a flash, and onto a restaurant to have lunch and await our flight, which goes off, according to schedule.  We catch a cab to the hotel for our car (getting ripped off by the cab driver because he wanted a longer fare), but nonetheless, we are in our car and on the road by 7:00 which is what we had planned.  The drive home is uneventful, and we are safely ensconced in the house before 11:00, going through mail and leaving the unpacking until tomorrow. 

9/23–Montreal and Trois Rivieres

Oh, it is an awful morning here in Montreal.  Cold, rainy, wind blowing.  We keep thinking we will wait a bit before heading out, because we are in the commercial port – they are upgrading the passenger port in downtown Montreal – and we need to take a shuttle into town.  With the traffic and our location, it might take 45 minutes to get in – so we figure “rain be damned!” That’s what umbrellas are for – and we line up to get off into the rain and wait for the shuttle.

John – our Montreal friend – is with us – he is going home to get his car and Chris’ daughter – and bring them both back to the pier.  So we have good company as we wait for the shuttle.  We are a bit early, but the bus finally arrives – and it is a LITTLE bus – maybe 15 passengers. We made the right move! We are on the first bus and outta there.

As it turns out, we can take the shorter route out of the pier area, but the driver stops at the next pier (where a Silver Sea ship is docked) and sits there talking to security for about 10 minutes.  We all think maybe he is lost – but no – he’s just talking to them about what? Who knows, we don’t speak French! The natives start getting restless on the bus – and the driver finally makes his way out of the port, after a couple of other shuttle buses have passed us! Geez.

But, the rain has at least stopped, and once in Old Montreal, we hope off and make our way to Place d’Armes, where Thrifty rental car should be.  Of course, both of us are a little concerned about this address, since the Place d’Armes is a lovely little square bordered by the Notre Dame Basilica, the National Bank museum, the Stock Exchange and a hotel, among other buildings. We spent a few days here a couple of years ago, so we’re pretty familiar with the area, and we’re pretty confident there isn’t a car rental agency there. And we were right!

So, out comes trusty google maps on the phone, and we think we can see the agency 3 or 4 blocks away. Turns out it is in the convention center, which is under some construction and tough to figure out entrances.  We finally find a way in, and walk through the massive interior – which also leads to a major subway and train station. As we are navigating the hallways, a badged lady comes up and asks where we are going.  We tell her Thrifty and she says ok and waves us on. Hmmmm…..something is going on. 

We find the rental office and obtain the car.  The convention center is under lock down (a “special situation” the rental agent says), and we have to go out into the garage from the driveway to get the car – no big deal! We find out later that the Chinese Prime Minister was in the building and that was why the tight security.

Not an issue for us – we are out of the lot and on our way fairly quickly.  Since we have spent a lot of time here, today we are (surprise!) going far afield to Trois Rivieres, a lovely little town on the Saint Lawrence that is known for art, poetry (it is the self-proclaimed world capital of poetry with a large festival in October) and, well, the pulp and paper capital of the world in the early to mid 1900s. It is about a two hour drive – straight up Autoroute 40 – but the trick is you have to get to Autoroute 40.

Oh dear! The traffic! Fortunately, we are driving against it – so we’re not stuck – but it is terrific.  We are hoping we don’t get stuck on the way back.  As it is, we retrace our route back past the port where the Quest is docked, and down through some industrial areas, skirting the city proper, and finally out onto the highway heading northeast.

Once on the road, it is an easy drive – not the most scenic, but fine. We arrive in town a little after 11:00 and spy the TI on the main street.  There is temporary parking set out just for the TI – so we snatch one of those spots and wander in to get a map and information. Good stop!  Not only do we get scads of great info, we also get a free parking pass for the garage! Wow – a $7 value. That’s  a bonus. Plus we get restaurant tips and some sightseeing tips. 

We park the car and start our wandering. It has turned into a lovely day, so we take advantage of it by strolling around the pretty little town.  Very historic looking with stately old brick and wood buildings, and a lovely cathedral situated in a pretty park.

We are heading toward the Vielle prison – which we’ve read has a great tour given by ex-convicts who were held at the prison. Supposed to be very interactive, although we are worried about the language. The literature says that English tours are not always available, so we will see.

On the way, though, we pass one of the restaurant recommendations:  Le Sacristain.  It is an old church renovated into a restaurant, which looks beautiful from the outside (love the type treatment of the name with the T as a cross).

Inside, the dining area is open and bright, with what appears to be the original church stained glass windows. The menu is great – lots of sandwiches – and we both order our favorites:  Ed the fried egg  on pumpernickel bread and me, the ham, artichoke, goat cheese sundried tomato and pesto on rye.  Perfect!  The beer is a perfect pour too!  LOL

Hunger sated, we walk back out into the sky blue day and make our way to the old prison.  Unfortunately, as we feared, there were no English speaking guides available.  Being out of season, the availability had to be booked in advance. Oh well. We wander down toward the river, enjoying the scenery and the weather.

Walking off our lunch, we decide we’ll head over to the Borealis, a “very interesting” museum the Tour Info lady said we should visit.  Ok – we’re game – we’re not ready to head back to Montreal yet.  Turns out, it was a fascinating museum!  All about the paper and pulp industry, the exhibits were informative and captivating. They even have a little interactive area where you can “relive the working conditions of a papermaker” with smells of the paper and pulp, microscopes to see the pulp in different stages, paper in different stages you could touch and, the finale, walking through the “plant” area where you actually feel the heat and humidity that workers would live through day in and day out.  Pretty interesting.  Plus there were plaques (and we had an audio guide) that told all about the history of the town, the paper factory, how they supplied virtually all the newsprint for the US. 

Outside, we could walk around the tower – which was their filtration plant, we think, with all the old machinery inside, and a great scenic walkway to view the river.

Nice tour.  From here, we headed back toward Montreal, driving through a lovely tree lined neighborhood of Trois Rivieres before entering the highway. Beautiful little place!

On the drive back we were, once again, amazed at the traffic. But luckily, it was mostly going against us again. How do these people live like this? Argh – it’s worse than DC!  We stopped for gas at Costco, got caught in our own mini-traffic jam trying to get out, then got stuck in a real backup on one of the highways, but managed to make it back to the road by the port and retraced our exit route to the convention center.

We picked up the shuttle and made our way back to the ship to pack – bummer – for our disembarkation tomorrow.

9/22–Sainte Anne De Beaupre and Ile d’Orleans

As we drive back toward Quebec, the clouds that have been scudding across the skies seem to coalesce, making us happy we have our umbrellas and jackets with us. Suddenly the beautiful day is not so beautiful.  We are hopeful the weather will hold out until we are back aboard the Quest.

We make an executive decision to not stop at the Canyon.  It’s mostly strenuous hiking, they call it extreme sports, with a zip line, oh, and a suspended bridge 60 meters above the falls. Nope – not happening. We’re staying closer to the ground, as we continue on our way and arrive at the Shrine of Sainte Anne De Beaupre and park in the immense parking lot.  The place is huge.  Rising up alongside the road, towering over everything for miles.  You wonder why they would build something like this here – and we could find no explanation, except that in 1658 when the first chapel was being built, a worker with excruciating back pain came to help. He was healed after working on the chapel, and the pilgrimages began. Over time, the original church was demolished and the Basilica was built. It burned in 1922 and the present Basilica was built.

This is supposedly the oldest pilgrimage site in North America.  Thousands flock here to give devotion to Saint Anne and ask for healing.  The building is just an astonishing feat of construction and artistry. Inside is over the top as well – the stained glass and columned and domed ceilings. There are even a couple of huge displays of crutches and prosthetics and other disability objects on a couple of the pillars as you first enter the basilica. Amazing!

It is a little after noon when we have finished touring the basilica, so we head directly over to Ile d’Orleans, and once again past the waterfalls – which are really huge and flowing strong.  Pretty cool looking.

We cross over the long, tall bridge to the island (my mother would have not been a happy camper on that bridge – at all)…

…then onto the island and onto one of the 3 roads that cross the interior of the island.  We decided we were hungry by this point, so we stopped at the Resto-Pub L’O2 L’ile (which Ed had found on the web before we left).  This place was a great little spot – with everything you could ever want from sandwiches, salads, pizzas and of course Poutine!

We go the carb route and I order the Club le Montagn (Mountain club with Proscuitto, Savoy cheese, dried tomato and carmelized apples) and Ed, who has decided to break the carb bank, orders the Poutine Gourmand (cheese curds, beef, mushrooms, bacon and gravy all slathered over french fries).  We’ll be hitting the gym hard tonight – and tomorrow and, well, for the rest of our lives after this meal! 

It is all as delicious as it sounded.  I ended up taking half my bread out – who needs 3 slices per sandwich – and we both wipe Ed’s plate clean.  But I swear it is lobster in there, and Ed says it isn’t, it is mushrooms and gravy.  Ok – well – whatever it is, it is yummy defined!  AS it turns out, when we get the bill, we realize that the Poutine was the lobster – Ed ordered in French instead of pointing like I do (because I slaughter the French language) and the girl heard “Homard” when he actually said “Gourmand.”  Oh well, it was fantastic.

Back out into the overcast day we go, fully sated. We stopped at the little information center but there were French speaking couples there talking away and not giving up an inch. I couldn’t find any free maps – just pay ones behind the counter, so we eventually left without information – except for a couple of little flyers I picked up on the way. 

When we were planning the trip, I had actually mapped out our route by the different artisan food places I wanted to visit. Since there is only one road, and it circumvents the island, we weren’t too concerned and headed off in the direction of the Cheese shop I had listed.

On the way, we began to pass all the adorable little stone cottages with awesome landscaping – too fast to take pictures – but the scenery was idyllic.  Farm land stretching as far as the eye could see on one side, and the river on the other.  And only 10 minutes from town!  What more could you ask?

We passed a winery, and a couple of other shops, then decided to follow a car from Massachusetts into the Domaine Steinbach Ciderie.  What the heck?  I forgot the phone in the car, so I couldn’t take pictures, but the store was chock full of ciders and duck pate and jellies, mustards and jams.  A cornucopia of food that got your salivary glands going.  We could pay $5 CAN for a tasting, so we figured, again, what the heck? We went into the tasting area with the Massachusetts folks (from Boston) and we all had a delightful time tasting mustards, then preserves, then jellies and jams, and for the finale, ciders paired with duck confit.  We were so sad we weren’t driving!  We would have cleaned out the shop with the mustards and confit!  But alas, we are flying and we aren’t hauling that stuff on the plane.  We’ve already got our blueberry onion confit from Lac St. Jean – we’re good.  But we do take the time to go outside for a bit and hang out on the deck built overlooking the apple orchard and river.  This is the place to be for a picnic!

We also found a great free map at the Ciderie – you know the typical tourist maps that come in a pad and have the advertising?  The one you would expect to find at the tourist information center, but that wasn’t? Yeah, that one, so now we are totally set – not that we really needed the map, but, well, you know CPS!!!  Mapped up, we continue our drive through the farmland, and orchards – the apples!!! – past a bunch of different farm stands, all with apples and strawberries and all sorts of produce we’d buy in a heartbeat but that we can’t take with us – and we won’t be able to eat it all by the time we hit the ship. Bummer!  The houses are now getting bigger as well, gorgeous stone structures surrounded by farmland.    We also start to see a lot of real estate signs.  Hmmm….interesting….

Our next stop is Les Fromages de l’sle d’Orleans, and adorable little house sitting amidst the apple orchards.  We head inside, unfortunately after a whole bus of school children. Eek.  But, as they bustled around, we looked at the cheeses and accessories and tried to make decisions on what to buy.  As it turns out, we decided not to buy anything – we really don’t need it on the ship and we’ve only got 2 days left. But we did want to try the local cheese and they were selling samples.  We managed to figure out each sample was $1.50, so we got in line to get our tickets, then select our samples.  The cheese, was the first cheese ever made in North America.  We tried two types – the hard cheese, Paillasson, and the soft type, Faisselle.  The Paillasson is fried in a dry saute pan until the outside is nicely browned and the inside is just a little gooey.  Totally to die for.  The Faisselle is the first phase of the cheese making process, basically the curds and it tastes like a cross between yogurt and ricotta.  They were both so good – but we really, really are sad we can’t take the Paillasson home with us.  That was truly the winner of the day. We ate both samples sitting on the covered porch at the back of the store, overlooking the apple groves.  Serene. 

Returning to our circuit, we continue to ooh and ahh over the scenery.  It’s just so incredibly beautiful and peaceful out here (on a week day with minimal tourists, that is!).  At the end of the island is a 5 story look out tower and picnic area that gives us great views across the island and over the St. Lawrence to both sides of the mainland.  Lovely – and great exercise after all our fries and bread and cider and cheese eating!

Off we head to a cool little church near the Confiserie Vielle Ecole, a confectionary shop I had mapped. The church was awesome, the confectionary shop a disappointment.  Repackaged candies from who knows where.  Not the locally produced products for which I had hoped.

We’ve completed half our circuit, and now don’t have anything mapped out until the complete other end of the island where we’ll stop at the Chocolaterie.  Yes! Dessert! More scenery, more river views, way more houses for sale.  Seriously, this whole island is for sale.  We’ll need to check the prices when we return home, but it is looking like bubble island to us.  Incredible! 

Halfway along the paved road, we come to a detour.  Huh? We’ve passed the road that bisects the island down here, so where are we going?  Off-roading is the answer to that question!  The detour sends you over hill and dale, through people’s farm land and all around the middle of the island on what appears to be a temporary gravel filled road.  Adventure!  It’s totally cool though, because we get to see a side of the island we wouldn’t normally see.  Thank heavens there is no “off-roading” clause in our rental agreement like there is in Maui with the Road to Hana.

Back on the paved road, we reach the west end of the island – and surprise! It is totally different.  It is like driving through the woods – deep woods. With huge houses stuck in and amongst the trees.  Completely unexpected.

We stop at the Chocolaterie, which other than the cool architecture and location at the tip of the island, is again, a disappointment.  The prices are really high, and I’m being cheap. Plus, how much chocolate do we really need? None would be the correct answer! And we have tons back in the cabin..so..we head out, unfortunately into the rain, which eliminates me taking pictures of the cool location and the water views.

It’s rainy enough that we don’t even stop at the viewpoint overlooking Quebec City as we exit the island.  Pooh.  We have to go find gas, so we head in the opposite direction of the city because that was where the gas stations were located.  On the way back, we pass the waterfalls and decide to punt them.  It’s a waterfall – it’s close to closing time and it’s raining.  Great shot from the car though….

…as well as a pretty decent shot of the Ile d’Orleans bridge…

…ok, neither are that good, but it’s the idea here people.  Come on!

We navigate our way back through the tiny, twisty city streets to successfully drop the car off at the garage, then head toward the ship. We thought we’d go through the old city, then down past the Frontenac hotel, but the route is uphill, then down, then up – and we abort when we find an intersection that takes us to the ramparts and the street we walked up in the morning.  We snap some shots of some of the more interesting buildings…

…and head back to the ship for our 2nd to last night dinner.