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.
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