There’s a good reason my favorite coffee shop is my favorite, it’s because of things like this. Not only was Tori’s finger on my coffee cup, but it’s also still there stuck under the lid. What was a bit gross, is that it was dripping into my no-foam sugar-free soy latte. Interestingly, it tasted kind of lemony. What it smelled like? I’ll leave that to your imagination, but I will tell you, it didn’t smell like bacon. Where’s Tori’s finger going next? She wouldn’t want to know.
Back to Buffalo, New York
We stayed somewhere west of Montreal (maybe Cornwall, Ontario), but I wrote just that at the end of yesterday’s post.
Tim Hortons was in Morrisburg, Canada, and I have to say that I am more impressed with Strader Auto next door as they were the clue to find out where we were on the map on this day. Congrats to them for still being in business; as far as Tim Hortons goes, there’s no rhyme or reason they are as popular and ubiquitous as they are. Had we been able to find poutine for breakfast, we might still have tried Tim Hortons, but we’d have known to spit it out, opting for potatoes, cheese, and gravy instead.
When I think bucolic living, this would do it for me right here, but then in 60 days, when the bitter cold of the region’s winter kicks in, I’d likely not continue holding fast to that idea.
Passed the Prescott Rotary Lighthouse which was an ice cream shop in Prescott, Ontario, Canada. Did we stop for ice cream? I have no idea but from the angle of the sun, I’d guess it was still too early for that, and in any case, we have some ideas for that when we get into Buffalo.
We crossed into New York at the Thousand Islands Bridge Authority at Alexandria Bay and still had 240 miles to go before reaching the city in which I was born.
Pizza from Bocce Club on Bailey Avenue in the Amherst neighborhood of Buffalo is a mandatory stop, not just to satisfy our hunger but to allow us to carry with us some much-needed, awesome cold pizza on our flight home tonight.
This is Fowler’s Chocolate. I think I shared a photo of the place back in the year 2000 when we visited here while Caroline and I were on our first cross-country trip, and while I may proclaim not to enjoy nostalgia, that’s just lips flapping when it serves me to sharpen my edge-lord persona. Bocce Club, Ted’s Hotdogs, Anderson’s Custard, and Fowler’s with their orange chocolate are pleasures from my childhood I can’t ignore.
We had one more stop to make this afternoon, and it was quite possibly a mistake. Our great aunt and uncle, who used to live near Santa Barbara, California, in the town of Goleta, skipped back to the place of their birth, Buffalo, New York. Not only that, they bought a house across the street from where my father grew up and where my aunt Lillian was still living. They didn’t so much move as they escaped due to a part of their past catching up with them that brought my aunt shame and anger because of so many unresolved issues. Once back here in Buffalo, it was obvious that my uncle’s health took a severe turn for the worse, as he was a shell of the man he used to be. Now, we were left with the tragic image of a couple half-broken and seeming to be quite unhappy in the last stages of life. Woody passed the following year, December 16th, 2012, at the age of 88.
Lingering in Quebec, Canada
Just like the previous day’s blog entry, this post is being written in early 2023 with no notes available to me. While somewhere in our stuff they might exist, I’m not feeling inclined to go on the hunt for them so I’m simply attacking these three missing days of our Canada trip in order to bring the photos out of the darkness of their electronic prison.
This is obviously not old town Quebec City anymore; we have left our luxury digs at the Fairmont Le Château Frontenac hotel and are headed north. A note about that lodging: back in 2011, Caroline was working for a company whose clients included many hotel brands, including Fairmont. This afforded us the opportunity to get a vastly discounted rate on our King Suite, where we paid the minuscule amount of only $150 a night. While that is normally (and especially back in 2011) rather pricey for us, we just looked up what that room rents for today, and it comes in at $1500 a night yikes.
The gigantic Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré is about 20 miles east of Quebec City and is an obvious first stop on our drive today. We had no idea that we’d stumble across another one of Canada’s national shrines today.
Even when it’s gray outside, the holy water in the church will be fresh and the environment magnificent, as this is something the Catholic Church gets right. A shrine or chapel to Saint Anne has been documented on the site since 1658, but today’s basilica was built in the 1920s after the previous one burnt down.
The basilica houses several relics from Saint Anne, including several inches of forearm bones. Miracles have been reported and in one area, a number of crutches and canes are on display, supposedly left by cured pilgrims.
According to the Catholic Church, the basilica receives over one million visitors annually, so there doesn’t seem to be any danger of this church being shut down.
This chunk of “Moon Dust” (ash-covered soft-ripened cheese from Duvillage 1860, later renamed La Pleine Lune) has stood out in our memories for all these years; we may forget details of the days spent in this French corner of Canada, but this cheese will never be forgotten. After our vacation, I tried to have it shipped to America, but to no avail (probably because it is made from unpasteurized milk), and now, a dozen years later, I’m looking anew, and still, nobody is shipping this cheese to the United States.
To someone unfamiliar with moose crossings, this certainly raises the old eyebrows, but so does the translation of the sign, “In case of intrusion, call 511.”
At the village of Les Éboulements, we stopped to take a quick self-guided tour of this flour mill called Le Moulin Seigneurial, which was built back in 1790. By the way, we have no problems with French street names, city names, or the speed in kilometers; the sense of being elsewhere is a delight.
At about 110 miles northeast of our starting point in the old town center, we decide that we’d better take advantage of a ferry that will take us across the St. Lawrence River which has seriously widened after leaving Quebec City. The ferry featured a small restaurant that allowed us to sample another version of poutine.
This patterning phenomenon is known in ancient cultures as water eating the sun.
I was just kidding about what I wrote above, but in Scotland, this form of baling hay is called rolling the kilt.
You might otherwise just pass through the village of Saint-André-de-Kamouraska in Quebec, but there’s something about this old house that captured our attention…maybe it’s just that we are on the south side of the St. Lawrence River.
When out on the road, Caroline has more than a few people back in Germany to whom she tries to write, so they find a surprise in their mailboxes from somewhere in North America. With a postmark from the village of Saint-Denis-De La Bouteillerie, we can hope they’ll be wondering just where our adventures took us.
Has anyone else ever wondered just how many beautiful sunsets they’ve seen during their lives?
If you thought we might take a break in the poutine dining regime, you’d be wrong, as we know that when we return to Arizona, there will be no more fries, cheese curds, and gravy, and with that in mind, we had a scrumptious dinner at Chez Ashton in Levis across from Quebec and likely drove to some point west of Montreal for our overnight stay.
Wandering Around Quebec City
For some unknown reason, this post and the two that follow remained in the electronic void of a hard drive with only the photos gathering virtual dust as the years passed. It is 2023 as I return to this, our first trip to Canada, and while I cannot be sure if there are notes for these days or not, I’m not ready to turn everything over to see if we might still have what could have been jotted down a dozen years ago. The first four days of the trip must have been written during or directly after the visit to our northern neighbor, as there are details in those posts that I’ll never be able to match in whatever I write here in an attempt to bring context to the images. This near-absolute lack of detail is a tragedy but can’t be helped.
Based on the entirety of the photos taken on this day, Caroline and I have pieced together a rough outline of our steps through Quebec City. To begin with, we decided not to have breakfast at the Château Frontenac. No doubt it looked stuffy to us, and we felt like intruders in this posh place anyway and thus decided to explore our surroundings instead. It was still early, and we saw glimpses of the rising sun across the St. Lawrence River. Just around the corner, we came across Notre Dame de Quebec Basilica. While its outside doesn’t look all that impressive, it is Canada’s oldest church, originally built in 1647 and elevated to a basilica in 1874. Since its inauguration, it has burned down and been rebuilt a few times, the last time when the Canadian Ku Klux Klan set fire to it in 1922.
We were not aware of all these details when we toured Notre Dame, although we did admire the shrine of Quebec’s first bishop, Francois de Laval, and enjoyed the atmosphere in the church with all the goings on that a big cathedral can have when no mass is in progress. Once we had left, though, it was time to indulge in breakfast, and Cafe and Boulangerie Paillard fit that bill. Two cafes-au-lait and some pastries later, we were back on the streets of old town Quebec City and, sure enough, ran into another church, Saint Jean-Baptiste or St. John the Baptist.
Mass was just winding down, so we didn’t spend much time here, just enough to appreciate the beauty of its hallowed walls. Sadly, when I checked Wikipedia for more information about the church, I found out that it was closed permanently in 2015. The need for costly renovations and a dwindling flock of faithful souls led to the, no doubt, difficult decision. I was unable to find out what had happened with the building since then.
After leaving the church, we must have decided to head towards the waterfront again. We probably had our eyes set on the citadel, but first, we came across a beautiful park.
…A park which is named Battlefields Park because of a historic encounter between British and French troops here in 1759 in the battle of the Plains of Abraham. Today, it is a peaceful and lovely place, and we soon spotted this sign. The gnomes showed us the way to the Joan of Arc Garden, which is decorated for Halloween.
But first things first.
We enjoyed the various displays of whimsy and gloom, then made our way to La Citadelle de Quebec, an active fort with a museum, which we visited. Since we had to be on a tour and would have had to wait hours for an English-language guide, we decided to join a French group. Unfortunately, that means we missed out on a lot of information, but it was still pretty interesting. The museum was a hodge-podge of insignia, plaques, and dodgy dioramas depicting historic battles and other noteworthy events.
I’m considering this image of Caroline and her identical twin, Batisse the Goat, in full military garb as the basis for claiming we are where I said we are.
Batisse is the regimental mascot of the “Van Doos,” the regiment garrisoned here, the only historical fortress that is still an active military installation in North America. The regimental nickname is a clumsy English attempt to pronounce the regiment number in French. They are the 22nd regiment, which is Vingt-Deux in French. This stuffed Batisse might have been the O.G. goat that was gifted to the regiment in 1955 by Queen Elisabeth from her private stock of Persian goats; in 2011, they were on the 10th “incarnation” of this noble ungulate.
With the help of another blog featuring rooftops seen from The Citadelle, I learned that this is the Chalmers-Wesley United Church.
Ready to leave the Citadelle, we took one last look around. Here, you can see how close we were again to the Chateau.
Just below the Chateau, which sits on top of a cliff terrace, lies the Quartier du Petit Champlain. We found our way down these stays and opted not to use the funicular; maybe it was not running at the time. The first thing we stopped for at the bottom of the stairs was a musician playing and singing local folk tunes while clogging and playing spoons. Not sure if he is still performing, but his name is Jacques Dupuis and you can find him on YouTube here.
I don’t believe Caroline needed to buy Sex-Appeal soap from Lush to have natural sex appeal, but maybe that’s just me. At the time, we had never heard of Lush Cosmetics but ran into one of their stores in Santa Monica years later. At that time, the soap was renamed “Sexy-Peel.” A quick check today (in 2023) reveals that this scent has been discontinued about two years ago.
With all the amazing food in town, we opted for Quebec City’s version of McDonalds. That’s exactly what we did on our quest to try as many variations of poutine as we could; this one is from Chez Ashton, which is credited with popularizing this humble dish in Quebec City in 1969.
We continued to walk the day away, basking in the feeling of being in an old European city.
Wow, nutcrackers in a storefront seal the sense of being back in Germany for the holiday.
Now feeling festive, it was time for a selfie in front of La Boutique de Noël de Québec.
Desiring something different for dinner than more french fries, cheese curds, and gravy, we opted for some Moroccan cuisine at Un thé au Sahara. While I can’t share anything about the meal itself, I do remember that we met a young couple from Saudi Arabia who were in Canada studying for their degrees and that we’d enjoyed a nice conversation with them.
Quebec City On The Horizon
Our breakfast today was magnificent, likely made better by the environment we are finding ourselves in, a sense of Europe. Outside, the sky is once again overcast, but as we learned from previous fall trips, the colors of autumn truly show their warmth when not bombarded by a trillion watts of direct sunlight. Across the street, we admire the St. Lawrence River flowing by and, for a moment, dream of kayaking its length on late spring days.
The road east is quiet; the tourist season is over.
The countryside too takes a break from summer. To our left, fields are clear, waiting for snow. On our right, the St. Lawrence lumbers by, nary a ship to be seen. In a world so crowded, how is it that we find ourselves the only travelers looking at these idyllic scenes on such beautiful days?
Entranced, we drive on, admiring the foliage as we move along. I imagine that during the summer and national holidays, these roads are teeming with busy tourists rushing here and there, stopping for ice cream or maybe to pick up some fresh, locally grown tomatoes. Right now, though, it is time to enjoy the land, preparing for hibernation. Where has everyone gone? Is anyone home?
Still, waters and heavy clouds are perfect companions to an earth and heavens that might otherwise be alone in their vastness.
And then the signs of civilization once again start to rear their heads. First up was a roadside stand selling apples by the bushel, honey, and those icons of fall, the rotund squat pumpkin. Another short bit down the road, a placard drew our attention to experience some honest-to-goodness pain. Oh, that’s right, we are in French-speaking Canada, pain is in fact not all that bad; it’s actually French for bread. Being the lovers of pain that we are, a loaf of roadside brick oven-baked bread was just the ticket. All we would need now was some new cheese to try it with.
In one of the next villages, that was just what we would find – cheese. Our stop was the Metro Plus, and once again, I am pleasantly thrilled that the idiotic stereotypes that I’ve heard far too often south of the Canadian border do not hold true. As we rummaged through the cheese bin, a woman approached and asked in French if we’d like some assistance. In our best imitation of cultured people, we asked in Frenchlish for a fromage with grande odeur. Luckily, she saved us from further embarrassment and in English, asked if we like to sample some of the cheeses. We leave with a package of Cendre De Lune or “Moon Dust” from DuVillage – the 2011 winner of Le Festival des Fromages Fins. This soft-ripened cheese dusted with gray ash will forever stand out as one of the best cheeses we have ever tasted.
Not long after our pit stop, we arrived in the maze of Quebec City. We are in love. Our hotel for the next two nights is at the famous Château Frontenac. This is our view.
We have a two-room suite, too bad as it will mostly be wasted on us. Our ambition is to see the city, not dwell in this sumptuous room. If only we were connoisseurs of pampering, we would probably enjoy, even demand, to be living in the resplendence of opulence due those who believe they have earned it. But alas, we are more simple than that and take our luxuries from the skies, forests, waters, and their myriad sounds and colors that enchant our senses. That is where we thrive in the finery of life.
Room service? We wouldn’t know how it was; we had a date with L’entrecote Saint-Jean for their supposedly amazing steak with mustard/pepper sauce. I would guess only locals order anything else off the menu, and by the looks of the plates we see while being seated, I’d have to say that it’s mostly travelers eating here. Caroline and I went the tourist route; that was, after all, what had drawn us in. It was good, not great, but worth the visit. What was really great was the dessert: profiteroles, also known as cream puffs. Covered in chocolate and almond slivers, the French know very well how to make pastries. Time to walk around the city and enjoy our move into night.
Back at the Château, we lingered outside, enjoying the city lights and the sense of history. With only one full day in Quebec City, we’ll have to rise early and be prepared to wear out our feet, but for now, we’ll just continue to walk and be delighted by these memories of Europe.
Montreal – Day 2
Sometimes, when we travel, the weather isn’t perfect, or so it seems at the moment. Overcast doesn’t make for vibrant travel photos, but it does focus the eye on details in closer proximity to our path. From under the gray cloud cover, it becomes difficult to grab an image of beauty that conveys to the viewer the delight had by the photographer. So, instead of trying to capture the elusive, it was in my best interest to focus on what I was going to get from this visit to Old Montreal. We started early with a walk on nearly empty streets from our hotel to the river’s edge, then on into the historic district.
Experience has taught us that to feel a moment of the heartbeat of a city, one should rise with the waking locals. Move within their routine. Take pause in their footsteps. See their domain across the timescape of the early morning through the late of night. Old Montreal has all the feel of many an old European city, save for these artistic reminders of the subarctic cultures that populate the northern climes of Canada.
All that’s missing right now is the fog in the late of night, the lamp flickering with the light of a gas flame, and the slow clip-clop sound of a horse pulling a carriage, as we walk along the dark alley. A tip of the hat and a bid for a safe evening is offered; we scurry along with music and laughter from a local bar heard in the distance. Mysteries hidden behind stone facades are better served on cobblestone streets. Our tour of the old town continues.
This is Notre Dame Basilica Montreal, and it is stunning. The Canadian French take their saints and religion seriously. Well, maybe they don’t anymore, but the history of their ancestor’s belief in the Almighty can be witnessed across the landscape and on most of the major streets. For example, the basilica is at 424 Rue Saint Sulpice. After our gawking visit, we will collect a coffee and board the subway at Rue Saint-Urbain – Saints everywhere.
If you want to feel like you are in a real city, not just some spread-everywhere metropolis-of-conformity (like, say, Phoenix), a subway lends an air of authenticity that you are in a place that deserves a rapid means of transport to the far corners of its community. The idea is that there are places here worth visiting spread across the map – not just another shopping center down the road. Our destination is another of those bastions of local culture – the farmer’s market.
We are at the Jean-Talon Market in the Little Italy district of Montreal. The lady who was selling the cranberries in the photo above, Caroline, also sold her own cranberry-apple juice. Local markets are not always tourist destinations, so do not expect much of your tongue to be spoken, and forget about signage that will help you navigate. Do not, though, discount your own intuition. The big metal beverage dispenser with French words likely offers something yummy, so I go for it. With my best pronunciation of the French word for one and a sharp pointing of my finger, I order “one of those.” The lady, recognizing my incredible mastery of her language, throws a string of French words in my direction, obviously asking me something I am going to easily understand (not); my only response is, oui – I could be relatively certain she wasn’t asking if I’d like a disease mixed into my drink. Good thing I’m Mr. International; not only are we surprised to find out that the cranberry juice is served hot, but the vendor’s question had been, “Would you like this with a dash of cinnamon?” Try it yourself; it’s as perfect as a spiced cider on a chilly fall day.
The fall harvest is on display in abundance. At this point, Montreal becomes a truly livable city to Caroline and me. This is also the time we start to recognize one of the peculiar differences between the United States and Canada – the cost of food. Breakfast at the truck stop yesterday was expensive, considering we all had your basic bacon and egg breakfast. Here at the market, we find prices for fresh food we haven’t seen in five years across the border. Four-pound cauliflower for $2, 2.5 pounds of creamer potatoes cost $3, a bushel of apples for $10, and a basket of four eggplant – only $3. One could get the impression that there is a subtle encouragement for people to avoid the convenience of fast food and invest their time in cooking at home – how weird is that?
But is Montreal perfect? We will have to verify this with a visit to a bakery and a cheesemonger. Being at a farmers market, and a French one at that, it should be obvious that a boulangerie and fromagerie would be nearby. I beg for an answer to the question, how did we Americans fall into Wonderbread and Kraft Slices? The bakery is big, busy, and full of a wide variety of crusty bread, treats, and baguettes. Around the corner, on narrow aisles, cheeses of every sort and beautiful stench are available for sampling. If it weren’t for all the incredible infinitely explorable landscape in the states, I do believe we would have to transplant ourselves to live amongst a people that appreciates a well-satisfied palate with a good dose of art, music, or theater to round out a day. No, New York City does not fit this bill, as the bills for living there require gargantuan salaries.
From cranberry juice to hops juice. It’s lunchtime, and Caroline opts for a beer. Before we get to the beer though, we first begin what should have been a long walk back towards our hotel. While we enjoy riding the underground subway we see little besides the stations, so we decide to walk and take in some more sightseeing. And we walk. By now, our feet are getting sore, heck, with all this walking. Plus, we had bought four train tickets, anticipating that we would ride the 4-mile return, sparing our feet. Time to hop on the metro. The slight discomfort isn’t the only thing pushing us to hurry.
We are returning to La Banquise for more poutine. I wanted to try some good French home cooking, but that wasn’t easy to find, while the warm comfort of gravy-laden fries with cheese beckoned like a lighthouse on the horizon. Yes, we feel guilty about taking the path of least resistance, of not being adventurous and dipping into the unknown – but we are talking about POUTINE! If you haven’t had it, you cannot know; you cannot judge the measure of our sloth and simultaneous delight. Now, excuse me while I indulge my senses in the memories of our mushroom, onion, green pepper, and cheese curd lunch.
Anyone who knows Caroline and me knows that we love nature. Continuing our compatibility test with Montreal, we head into the local wilds, Lafontaine Park. This 100-acre park is Mount Royal’s (bet you hadn’t considered Montreal’s translation) largest park; it will serve as our basis for observing nature and wildlife that might be found in the city. Squirrels, this was as good as it got. Lots of squirrels were scampering up trees and across the grass, but these were fierce squirrels showing little concern for the multitude of dogs who might be interested in a quick game of chase. This carelessness is probably not good for these well-fed, chunky specimens of squirreldom.
It’s time to start moving away from Montreal, feeling that we have a good taste of what the city has to offer. One stop remains for our Intro To Montreal Tour, L’Oratoire Saint-Joseph du Mont-Royal. Construction began back in 1904, but inside, one feels as though this is one of the most modern basilicas to be found. So modern and open-minded that the signs within the facility let visitors know it’s okay for their children to pick their noses.
Making our way up the steep climb, we are offered a terrific panoramic view of the city. This is where a beautiful sunny day would have paid off for taking a spectacular photo.
As I said earlier if the overcast view doesn’t offer up a great photo opp, you better start looking for details. And what curious detail at St. Joseph’s was it that arrested our attention? Saint Andre Bessette’s heart. No longer pumping, but in apparently good shape after 74 years of resting outside his body. So we are religious noobs, but various body parts on display for worship strike the two of us as a bit weird. I’m certain that upon my death, there are rules against my wife keeping parts of me.
The greatest display of candles I’ve seen is here in Montreal at St. Joseph’s. Is this where the concept for Lite-Brite began? At first glance, I hadn’t noticed the pattern between red and clear glass candle holders. I can make out Joseph and Patron, but the rest must be in French. A small gate allows followers to climb the narrow steps on the left and right to ascend the heavens and light a candle. This would surely be illegal in America due to liability laws and the concern that someone might brush an article of clothing over the candles, immolating themselves before God and whatever children might be present. How long until this visual is used in a movie?
About to bring the day to a close, we drive out of Montreal and, once clear of the city, start looking for a room. Dinner tonight was on the road where we indulged on more of our stash of onion bread, cheese, and sausage – we bow down before Cathy for this little luxury. We find the small village of Lanoraie, 42 miles down the road; it offers up Motel Villa D’Autray. Our host doesn’t speak English beyond “Hello.” I offer back “Bon Soir.” Our French language mini-guidebook suggests I try “Combien s’il Vous plait,” she understands and shows me a rate card. We’re in business. I pay $65 for a great little room right across the street from the St. Lawrence Seaway. The flannel sheets were awesome, the bed comfy, and we were quick to sleep.