Saturday May 25th - Walk between hotel and Metro stop, around Visitation Island and back - Laval and Montrea, QC - 8 miles, not much elevation gain

We booked this trip a long time ago and later changed from a Hilton hotel in Montreal to a Hotwire booked mystery hotel in Laval.  It seemed like Memorial Day weekend would never get here but it finally did.  My employer has a once annual company holiday that is named after the company and over the few years it's been around the day has varied considerably.  This year they made it the Friday before Memorial day, effectively giving us all a 4 day weekend which was great for this trip.

We drove up Friday and had a long and not too expensive casino visit on the way.  It meant we got into Montreal pretty late but surprisingly, the drive on NY 104, I-81 and Ontario-401 and on into Montreal on the A-20 etc was all very very good.  There really wasn't any objectionable traffic anywhere.  

 We also had a dinner that exceeded our expectations at Kelsey's Roadhouse in Brockville Ontanio, not far after crossing into Canada. Oddly I chose it by just using Google maps and looking through the 5 'add a stop' suggestions is had for restaurants which includes a star rating.  Kelsey's roadhouse had 5 stars so I thought it was worth checking out and it was great.  I had a salmon bowl with pesto, rice, spinach, mushrooms and peppers. It was packed with flavor and they seemed to use some steakhouse seasoning which imparted a bold meaty flavor to the salmon that I really enjoyed.  Brian had a burger with goat cheese and bacon that he custom ordered.  He loves goat cheese and it's not common to have the option.  I had convinced myself that none of the 3 deserts on their web menu (that I glanced at while waiting for our food to be served) were things I couldn't do without so when he came to ask about desert I said no thanks I looked at the 3 options you have.  His response was that they had 3 new deserts added now so of course we ended up having an apple cobbler.  It was all great food and not a terrible value.

 

The hotel we're staying at looks like a castle form the outside and they host a lot of weddings here.  The room is large and has a full couch and comfy chair plus a small table and 2 chairs in addition to a desk.  Overall there is kind of a lot of furniture in the room with 3 end tables and a long upholstered bench thing that is doubling as a luggage rack.  Despite the grounds being pretty busy Friday night, we've had absolutely silent nights in our room which is great.

Saturday morning we decided to walk to the Metro and take the train a few stops into Montreal to visit a park there called (roughly) Visitation island.  The island does offer consistent views of the Rivière des Prairies and the weather was great.  We didn't find the park overly fascinating since it's basically just a series of parallel gravel roads that run North and South along the narrow island with a few narrower trails meandering between the larger paths.  I enjoyed walking across a dam and seeing the retained water it holds back but we probably were in the park for just 45 minutes and that was enough.

 

We exited the park maybe a mile and a half North of where we entered and headed in towards Montreal (East) to wander and find lunch.  Despite there being a ton of restaurants shown on Rue Fleury, several of them were really Cafe's which seem to be mostly about selling coffee and alcohol.  Others were closed.  We eventually ended up trying a Creole restaurant,  Bouillon de Saveurs which was excellent.  After our long walk it was great having flavorful plates with plantains, salad, rice and beans, pickled peppers and our choice of main dish.  The staff was very friendly and there were only a few other people eating inside.  After we were mid-way through our meal a big group was seated outside but just 2 other diners were in the nice cool dining room with a great sound system and good music playing. We weren't totally sure about Creole food as a choice but it turned out to be so satisfying and wholesome.

The heat and walking added up quickly so even though it wasn't even 2 PM yet, we headed (round about) back to a Metro stop and returned to our hotel, happy but pretty tired.  In fact we had a nap which isn't a common thing for us to do.  Later we headed on a drive up towards the Laurentian mountains and had a chicken sandwich meal for me and Poutine for Brian from rotisserie chicken chain here called Benny & Co. There are a handful of similar chicken chains in different parts of Canada that all specialize in rotisserie chicken served with sides and a special brown gravy that has some warming spices in it.  It's almost like Boston Market chicken but with a secret sauce served on the side.  It was a good dinner. Brian had a piece of sugar pie with it which looked like Pumpkin pie but tasted like a thick maple custard.  Glad we got a lot of walking in.

 

 

 

That wrapped up our first full day in Quebec this trip.