Other semi-interesting things we did on our fall 2023 vacation.
Like wine tastings on patios! 😁
Well, we did start in Prince Edward County. We headed to Black Prince Winery first. We’d visited in 2020 and quite enjoyed it; I was wondering how much the vibe would have changed since then.
They have expanded in subsequent years, with a wood-oven pizzeria on site now. But the vibe was pretty much the same: casual, funny, personalized, willing to throw in an extra taste or two. And the wine was better than last time, if anything. Jean and I didn’t agree on everything: he thought the Chardonnay was amazing and I thought it was just OK; I thought the Pinot Noir was amazing, and he thought… But no mind. We agreed on enough to get six bottles or so, along with some of their excellent vinegars: pinot noir, peach, raspberry, apple cidar…
We then headed for another repeat visit, to Lighthall Vineyards. They had changed even less, a small winery offering tasting with cheese made on-site (indoors, but uncrowded and with excellent cross-ventilation from doors open at each end). We once again enjoyed the wares, and did some purchasing here, too.
We’d had a heck of a time booking accommodations for this trip, because hotels are just stupid expensive now. For this leg, we had choice of Kingston, Gananoque, Picton, Wellington… But ended up in Belleville (about a half hour from Picton), because that’s the only place that seemed reasonable. It was at a Hampton Inn, which is unexciting, but quite nicely furnished.
On Monday, we found that the included breakfast was nothing amazing, but did the trick. Unlike the Hampton in Sudbury, they had no problem with us taking the food and eating it in our room.
Then as a break from tasting and dining, we started the day with a walk in the Prince Edward Point Bird Observatory. It was a shortish walk, particularly given the longish drive to get there, but we did get some nice views of flora and fauna.
After this is when we visited Harwood Winery, where they offered wine flights with lunch, allowing you to taste and dine at once. The people were lovely, and we were quite impressed with the wines! After the tastings, we had a couple glasses of our favourites (which might be partly why we ended up napping through the dinner-time rain thereafter). And we of course bought a few bottles as well.
Finally stop was at Traynor Vineyard, which had also expanded quite a bit since our last visit. They had a nice covered patio area, and offered good explanations of their wines, but overall it was our least favorite of the wineries visited (though we still bought a couple reds).
Tuesday, our last day in this area, we headed to Gananoque, which had apparently decided it was full-on Fall already (despite the great weather), with museums closed til the weekend and limited store and restaurant hours. So after our walk-about and cafe lunch, we drove to Landon Bay for a longer hike. It’s always a nice area to walk in.
We arrived early for dinner in Kingston, so we took another walk along the river. Jean kept hoping to see turtles, and on the way back—he did! Two or three resting on logs. A little too far away for the pictures to work out, though.
After dinner, we drove to Almonte, the one destination that seemed to offer reasonably priced accommodations in a convenient location. On the way we had a bit of excitement in the form of two deer who decided to cross the road in front of our car. Fortunately, Jean spotted them in time enough to brake (and nobody was that close behind us).
We stayed at the Riverside Inn. I’d wondered whether our somewhat late arrival would be a problem, but during dinner they texted us access codes that allowed us to check ourselves in. Seemed cool, though typing in the codes correctly in the dark was challenging. If you touched the panel and thereby got a number wrong, it took a while for the system to reset so you could try again. Eventually we did make it in, and the room code was not as difficult.
It was an older place, but they made good use of the space, and the bed was really comfortable. What the text didn’t tell us was that breakfast was between 8 and 9, and we ventured downstairs just slightly later than that (as we weren’t entirely sure there even was breakfast). But they took pity on us and brought some of the food back out. Definitely the best breakfasts of the trip—croissant, yogurt, fresh coffee, banana bread, fruit… (And there were few other guests at the Inn, so we had the breakfast room to ourselves.)
We then just walked around Almonte, which is the cutest place! It’s used as the location in many Hallmark Christmas movies, due to its old-fashioned charm.
It’s also somewhat known for its vodka made from milk (called Vodkow!), which actually didn’t sound good at all! But we figured we should try it. Given that they make it in flavors like chocolate and maple syrup, it’s actually really good! The young woman running the tastings was very bubbly. With assurance that it lasted a long time even after being opened, we bought a few bottles in various flavors.
We then went to Hummingbird Chocolate, where they unfortunately don’t really do tastings, but on the assurance that it’s some of the best chocolate in the country, we just bought some (along with European hot chocolate and ice cream to eat right away).
Then it was off to their coffee roaster, Equator, for beans and lattes.
With plenty of calories to burn, we then drove to the Mill of Kintail Conservation area to do some walking. Made for a good afternoon.
The next day we headed to Ottawa, which is only an hour or so from Almonte. Hotels in downtown Ottawa were, again, stupid expensive, so we stayed right across the bridge in Gatineau, which is still pretty convenient to things. (Plus it finally got us out of province!) We weren’t able to check in immediately, so we just left our car there and did some walking around town.
We then visited the Canadian Museum of Nature. Unlike our rushed previous visit, this time we went through every gallery.
The special exhibit was about creatures from the rain forest. It featured live animals, but they noted that none has been snatched from their habitat for exhibition purposes. All of the animals were rescues. Some were hard to spot. The lizard below was pretty visible!
Jean had been wanting to see owls, and guess what the outdoor exhibit was featuring? (Rescues again!) Owls are so cool. (I’ve just been reading about their incredible hearing, in Ed Yong’s An Immense World.)
Once we got into our hotel, we found that it was nothing special, but fine. (They were busy repaving their parking lot, which was moderately inconvenient.) The included breakfast was extremely mediocre, the worst of the lot this trip. (And served in a really crowded room. So we took our food and ran again.)
Friday we visited the National Art Gallery, which we hadn’t been to in some time. We did not visit every gallery, but enjoyed the ones we had the stamina for. Then we did more city walking.
Saturday we decided to walk to a McDonald’s (the only breakfast restaurant that was really close by) for takeout breakfast (that’s how mediocre the hotel one was).
Then we decided to drive to Gatineau Park for a hike. We did this with little advance prep, which turned out to be kind of stupid. The Park is quite popular always, but especially in Fall, and especially on a beautiful weekend day. So, parking lots were full, and roads in it were blocked off because the parking lots were full, so we couldn’t get to the trailheads we were hoping to, and it was all kind of frustrating.
Eventually, we managed to park near the Pink Lake trail and do that one. It’s quite a fascinating lake! It’s so deep the oxygen doesn’t reach the lowest levels, which is home to some of the world’s oldest and rarest creatures, who die when exposed to air. It’s also a very lovely lake, kind of an aqua colour. (No pictures from Jean, though, as he wasn’t that happy with any of those he took.)
In the afternoon we visited the Museum of History, which really does an excellent job of taking you through Canada’s history. Bit depressing how racist (and sexist) a lot of it is, though!
As we were leaving, all these gorgeously attired young people started showing up. There was some sort of event happening there that evening…? No idea what. But an interesting code to the visit.
Then Sunday we had an uneventful drive back home.
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