Read more about the article Quebec City at Night
The Chateau Frontenac Hotel

Quebec City at Night

We arrived! Our day had gone incredibly smooth: we caught an earlier flight, got upgraded to a minivan at the rental car counter and now at the Chateau Bellevue Hotel, we got upgraded to a king room/suite with complementary breakfast. We were one block from the Chateau Frontenac Hotel, the iconic grand hotel in the region. Much like the Empress Hotel in Victoria, BC, I read that it is the most photographed hotel in Canada. That was our first stop.

My recollections of Quebec City centered on this hotel back in 1984. We had stayed in Montreal 1-2 days and drove through Quebec City. I remember we parked at the Chateau Frontenac, walked through the lobby and walked around the town. I remember lots of stone structures and hills. I knew I wanted to come back here and spend more time. It seems we were getting ready to leave Quebec City and my father had to put something in the trunk of the rental car. In the process he dropped the keys inside and shut the trunk. This was before the buttons in the interior of the car that pop the trunk. There were no fold down seats to access the trunk either. We were stuck. Since the car had been rented in Montreal, there was not readily accessible second set of keys. After talking to the rental car agency via pay phones in the hotel, the solution was simple. Call a locksmith. We had to wait and it seemed that the entire process took several hours.dsc_0036 (more…)

Read more about the article Trois Rivieres & Chemin du Roy – QC, Canada
St Josephs Church in Deschambault

Trois Rivieres & Chemin du Roy – QC, Canada

Landing at Pierre Elliot Trudeau Airport in Montreal three hours ahead of schedule (we were able to go on an earlier flight without any additional charge), we had time to explore Trois Rivieres and Chemin du Roy once we got our rental car. Even the rental car got upgraded from an economy car to a minivan with GPS. We didn’t figure out how to change it from French to English until the last day. In fact, we laughed when the car would yell at us to “boucle” our seatbelts.

Getting out of Montreal was a bit congested and crowded, but soon we got north of town and exited about 90 minutes later at Trois Rivieres in the Mauricie Region. It was a bit confusing because we had printed out a Chemin du Roy guidebook. We were starving and stopped at Boulangerie Francois Guay because there was an ad in the guidebook and it had good reviews on Trip Advisor. I believe we went to the Pointe-du-Lac location. It was a tiny town feel with a few older men speaking French on the front porch.

 

Inside, the bakery type cafe, the menu was completely in french and boy was I rusty. I saw jambon, but couldn’t remember that it was ham. It was thrilling and frustrating at the same time. I ordered a sandwich. Bill had the poutine. She pointed to four different sauces – sucre (I knew it meant sugar) meant sweetened, the others I couldn’t tell you so we ordered plain. It was delicious. This poutine was like cheese curds over baked beans. It was my favorite although DH had some with quail that he liked better later in the trip. (more…)

Vancouver/ Seattle/ Olympic National Park Itinerary

Sea-to-Sky Highway between Vancouver and Whistler, BC

Our trip to Seattle and British Columbia was the 2nd of our big trips with our children who were in elementary school. Since flights were significantly less expensive for  Seattle, so we decided to incorporate that into our trip to British Columbia. (more…)