Tag: travel

One more in the Point Pelee tally

On this trip, we got into one of those pointless couples discussions about how often we visit the Lake Erie / Kingsville / Point Pelee area: Annually? Periodically?

There is an objective answer to this, of course, and thanks to my blogging habit, I am now able to share. We were last in this area in November 2021. And before that, we visited in August 2013, July 2017, and August 2018. Note that I did dub this 2018 expedition “annual”, but that turned out only to be true that year.

At any rate, this year we again headed to those parts for a few days, rather than to Niagara, our more recent “annual” destination.

Monday, May 4

This spring has been reluctant to get and stay warm, and this was largely true on this vacation as well, even though we were visiting the southernmost part of the province. The very first day, however, was glorious: fully sunny, with a high of 21 C. We were not able to check into our Inn until 4:00—it was one of those self check-in places, and we didn’t get the entry codes until shortly before 4:00—so we spent the time ambling around Kingsville, even though many of its stores are closed on Mondays. We were able to get excellent lattes from a local cafe, though.

Jean was pretty tuckered from a bike trip the previous day, but I coaxed him into a walk to the waterfront. It was lovely!

Park with flowering trees, a gazebo, and water in the background, on a beautiful sunny day.
Jean was too tired to take photos on Monday, so you’ll have to make do with mine

We then recuperated on the patio of a little pub. I had a nonalcoholic cocktail based on ginger beer, and Jean had an alcoholic one based on prosecco. We also had fries and fried Brussels sprouts.

Despite the mild inconvenience of the late checkin, our Inn, the Heart and Soul Inn, was really great. It was conveniently located near downtown, and had beautiful rooms in what seemed to be an old house. Very good coffee and some nice snacks were supplied. Each room had a theme. Ours was musical.

Lamp and window with 45s affixed the wall, and a staff to the right of it. Also shown are snacks and a Keurig coffee maker, along with an Elvis book.
Also there but not shown in this photo: a tiny piano, a gramophone, more music-themed books, and more LPs on the wall

We couldn’t lounge too long, though, because we had a dinner reservation at North 42 Estates Winery, and we wanted to get there a little earlier to do some wine tasting. North 42 have a beautiful building on a nice property, and some pretty spectacular wines. We were especially impressed by the 2019 Cabernet Franc (not even their “estate” wine), which was so smooth and fruity. And by the “estate” Pinot Noir, somewhat bigger than Ontario Pinots can be, and very complex. But we also enjoyed their Gewurtz and Sauvignon Blanc.

It was a quiet day at the winery, and we were able to segue seamlessly from the tasting to the dinner, while sitting out on the patio again. We enjoyed our meal of shared mussels with sparkling Riesling (also shared). I then had the beet linguini, which was very creative and fresh and served with Sauvignon Blanc, while Jean had the nicely prepared pork with delicious potato puree, served with the afore-mentioned Pinot.

The pub snacks had left us too full for dessert, alas.

Tuesday, May 5

One thing I’d learned during my pre-trip research is that it was a bit difficult to find a place that served breakfast before 9 AM in Kingsville. There was one, though: Jim’s Sub Shop. This is what we tried. It offered pretty serviceable egg-based breakfast items. Jim was quite personable and fun to chat with.

Unlike our sunny first day, Tuesday was cool and rainy. We headed to Amherstburg, and stopped in at the Freedom Museum, which focuses on African-Canadian history. It consists of two buildings: a former homestead that displays items from that time, and to which a larger exhibit space has been attached, and a Black church. We got a personal tour of both buildings. I had heard of Canada’s role in the underground railroad for escaped African-American slaves, and it was interesting to learn that Amherstburg was a major point of entry on that network.

I heard not previously heard the shameful fact that in 1850, Ontario passed a Segregation Law that prevented Black children from attending the same schools as children of other races—to which the Black community responded by building their own schools. (Methinks perhaps the education I received on racial matters in my country was a bit sanitized.) I had to look up when and how that ended:

In response to the activism of Black parents, racially segregated schools in Ontario were gradually phased out. The last racially segregated school in Ontario, School Section No.11 in Colchester, closed in 1965. This was done after newly elected MPP Leonard Braithwaite pushed for the Separate Schools clause on segregated schools for Blacks to be officially removed from provincial education policy. The last racially segregated school in Nova Scotia closed in 1983 in Guysborough County.

The Canadian Encyclopedia

After that interesting but sobering visit, we had lunch at an unremarkable but adequate Italian restaurant, then went to visit Vivace Estate Winery. We’d never been to this one before. It’s small, and we were the only patrons. We did a tasting of the “Local Favourites” and the “Premium Select” wines. I found that their Vidal-based wines had a bit an off-putting barnyard scent. But I quite liked their Pinot Grigio, which was more lemony and complex than this wine typically is. Jean wasn’t sure about it at first, but was ultimately won over. We also enjoyed their Baco, Marechel Foch, and we decided to buy their port-style Cavatina without tasting it, figuring we’d enjoy it.

Small tabby cat on a stair.
Big fluffy black cat on a bed.
Mostly white cat on a cat house roof.
We have no pictures from this day, but our cats seemed to be having a nice time with the sitter

Our dinner that night, back in Kingsville, was at Mettawas Station, an old favourite. However, we didn’t really love it this time. The food wasn’t the issue: we shared escargot to start, and enjoyed how they served them in portebello mushroom. I had a pasta special with lovely fresh peas and asparagus—the serving was too large, but the taste was good. Jean enjoyed his smoked mozzarella ravioli. We each had a different flavor of tartuffo for dessert, and both were great.

No, the issue was mainly the accoustics: it was just quite loud in here. Though not at capacity, there were definitely enough people that it was too many conversations to overhear. The waitress did a masterful job at managing all the tables by herself, must say, but we’re still not too inclined to go back, unless we could sit outdoors.

Wednesday

We didn’t want diner breakfast again, so we decided to wait until 9 AM to have more options. We first tried a whole-food brunch place, only to find they weren’t open on Wednesdays. We then stopped in at a little cafe called La Dolce Vita, but it seemed the only breakfast they had were smoothies and pastries. So then we tried the cafe we’d been to on the first day, but they only had pastries. Figuring it would be better to have a smoothie with our pastry, we went back to La Dolce Vita, only to learn that they actually had a bunch of fancy breakfast sandwiches and sides (like fruit) as well. Yay!

It was a very nice breakfast. In a very quiet room!

Weather was also enjoyable: not as warm as Monday, but sunny. So we decided to make this our Point Pelee Park day. But before that, because it made more sense geographically, we stopped at a winery near Leamington: Aleksander. We’ve been here a number of times, and always enjoyed it; this day was no exception. We were the only patrons, and had a leisurely tasting of a few different options, along with a charcuterie board. We purchased a full complement of types: white, rose, red, dessert (late harvest)—not all of which we tried this day; some we just knew from past visits we liked. The favourite we tried was the Amarouge, a blend of Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Chambourcin.

We then went into Leamington to visit the Arts Centre. They had a few different exhibits on: a student show, Far Out show, Things That Go Bump in the Night! So, an interesting, eclectic collection.

Clock with orange flowers around it, a gingerbread man below, and possibly sand and shells in the corner. Art piece!
One of the exhibits at the Leamington Arts Centre

We then made it to Point Pelee National Park. It was a pretty popular place, because this was prime bird watching season, and this is a prime bird watching area. But it was fine sharing the trails with the birders (though Jean remarked they made his camera looked puny). We don’t know our birds, beyond the obvious ones, but there’s no doubt we saw many ourselves during the hike. The big wild turkeys were pretty cool. But also the Grosbeaks, and the little yellow birds, and the brown birds, and the gray birds, and the black… (sorry; as noted, don’t really know birds!).

Large eagle in a sparse tree against a blue sky.
I do know this one, though! Hello, eagle. This is a Jean photo.
Black bird with red, yellow, and white on its wing: a red wing blackbird.
And this is a grosbeak red wing blackbird. And also a Jean photo. (Taken with his puny camera. Haha.)

Dinner was back in Kingsville, this time at Wineology, a restaurant whose Kitchener location had closed some time ago, but whose Kingsville location remained a going concern, albeit at a new location in Kingsville. It was a nice room: quiet (!), with cool furniture. We were almost the only patrons; the other tables seemed to be friends of the wait staff, which was a little different, but fine. It felt like a very casual night out, but with better food.

For whatever reason, Wineology still have American wines on their menu here (for those not in the know, American wines have been banned from sale in Ontario since the trade troubles). Jean tried to avoid them, but didn’t quite manage, as he selected two different flights per course. I went, eh, and embraced having a California Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (even though I hadn’t really been missing them). The Chardonnay was part of the wine flight I had with my first course; the Pinot Noir I had on its own with my main.

The food was good and nicely plated. We shared a feta plate to start. I then had the truffle pasta (realizing only retrospectively that I selected pasta for every single dinner on this meal, although the first one was veggie and not carb-based), and it was quite lovely. Jean enjoyed his pistachio-encrusted lamb and mashed potatoes. For dessert, I think we ended up with tiramisu? I do recall that not all desserts were available, but that the one we got in the end was very nice.

Thursday

Was another beauty day, but also our last day of vacation. We had another breakfast at La Dolce Vita, stopped in at the Olive Oil store to replenish our olive oil and balsamic vinegar stock, and then we headed out.

Trip to PEC

Black and white beach in Prince Edward County.

We selected Prince Edward County as the destination for our first post-retirement vacation together. Although we waited until late enough in October that we missed out on all the unseasonably warm Fall weather, we were still able to get some hikes in. And despite having visited this area a number of times previously, we still had some new experiences.

Highlights were:

  • The quite fascinating tour of the S.S. Keewatin, a decommissioned luxury cruise ship, at the Great Lakes Museum in Kingston.
  • Staying at the Jackson’s Falls Inn in Milford, where we enjoyed a king suite with Nespresso machine, excellent breakfasts, and an included Netflix account (hello, The Diplomat Season 3).
  • The informative and basically private wine tasting stop at Sugarbush Vineyards in Hillier, makers of excellent Viognier and Cab Franc and experimenters with adding a bit of maple syrup to wine (not bad!).
  • Dinner at the cozy Hartley’s Tavern in Picton, whose casual name belies the excellent food and service provided.
  • A rather stunning beach walk at the Prince Edward County Bird Observatory.
  • Finally making it to Three Dog Winery in Picton, where we enjoyed their excellent charcuterie board along with tastes of a good portfolio of red, white, and sparkling wines.
Front view of a narrow and tall cruise ship, flying a British flag.
The S.S. Keewatin. We went aboard!
A black and white view of a lakefront beach, with a cloudy sky and some trees.
The beach at Prince Edward County Bird Sanctuary.

For more details (and photos), see Trip to PEC, October 2025.

Summer’s almost gone

Oysters on ice with rose in the background.

And how did it go? Well, my plans were minimal—see family, see friends, do some outdoor dining while the dining is good… But even so, results were mixed.

Seeing family

Thanks to Jean arranging it (also with a number of his friends), I did get together with one of my sisters and brother-in-law for a canoe trip down the Grand River. The trip started just upstream of a small waterfall. We then had to stop ourselves before going down said waterfall, and maneuver the boats (and people) down it from the side, while walking on rocks and sloshing in water.

Various people in canoes and paddle boards in front of a waterfall.
Post waterfall. I’m not related to any of these people, but they were on this canoe trip with us!

This was a rather stressful start to the trip, particularly for my sister and brother-in-law, who, at that point, were still working on just getting the canoe to go in the direction they wanted. But we did all get through it.

And after that, it was a lovely trip down the river on a nice sunny day! (Or what Jean called “the boring part”.)

The long weekend of August, we travelled to Timmins—and so did both of my sisters! We stayed with Dad, and my brother hosted all of us for dinner one night, along with a few other local relatives. The occasion, we declared, was Dad’s pending 90th birthday.

Duck in the water.
This is a Timmins resident, but again, not someone I’m related to.

That dinner, and the other dinners and gatherings we had that weekend, were great despite the wildfire smoke in the air. One of my sisters traveled with us, and we broke up the return trip by we stopping over in Orillia. The highlight there was a patio dinner at Picnic, a tapas and wine bar. It was a nice day, with better air quality, and really good food!

So, I’d say that was pretty successful, especially if you also consider the Quebec City family gathering we had earlier in the season, and that another sisters gathering is pending, in September.

Seeing friends

We did see some friends in Timmins, and we managed the Blackshop outing in July, and Jean sees his friends all the time. But due to certainly valid reasons such as trying to sell a house, or getting sick, or traveling, I haven’t been able to arrange too much else.

So in August, I stopped trying to wait on doing certain things until friends were available, and Jean and I just headedout à deux.

Outdoor dining and such like

So here’s the run-down of, I just realized, all new (to us) places we tried this month.

Bodega Rose

It’s been open for about three years, but it was our first time there.

Getting there: It’s in uptown Waterloo, so we biked there. They didn’t have a bike rack, but we found a spot to park the bikes in front of the (at the time) closed ice cream shop window.

Reserving: Uses Open Table, and allows you to select outdoor seating, which is nice.

Service: Not wonderfully outstanding, but not bad, either.

Ambiance: They do what they can to block off the street from the patio, but it is a street-side patio.

Jean on patio with beef skillet.

Drinks: Some of the best iced lattes we’ve ever had. And a pretty decent wine menu.

Food: We went for brunch, so it was that kind of thing. My French toast was nice, and Jean’s braised beef skillet was very good.

French toast.

The Boathouse

A historic building recently reopened at Victoria Park, now with patio. Our first time trying it since that happened.

Getting there: It is in downtown Kitchener, and we biked there. There was a nearby bike rack.

Reserving: Was not going to bother, as it was a weekday, but at the last minute I did request a reservation. They use Touch Bistro as the reservation service.

Service: Strange. Upon arrival, we asked to sit outside, but they said there was no room—though it looked as though there was? We said we’d wait a bit to see if room opened up, and went outside to spy on the patio tables. After maybe 10 minutes, we did see two people leave, so went back in to ask for their table. Which they agreed to seat us at. While waiting for that to be cleared, a few more people arrived, and they asked to sit outside, and were immediately told that wasn’t a problem. (?) I remain perplexed.

Ambiance: Beautiful patio, because Victoria Park is beautiful, and you get a great view of it from here.

Drinks: We both ordered off the very interesting mocktail list, and were both pleased with what we got.

Food: Very good fries / poutine. Jean said his burger was fine. I had the burrata grilled cheese, which was just way too much bread for the amount of cheese, the taste of which was further overwhelmed by the zucchini relish. When they saw I only ate half of the sandwich, they did discount its cost by 50%.

The French

Believe this is a relatively new restaurant, with a partner one in Hamilton. This was our first visit.

Getting there: It’s in the Gaslight district of Cambridge, so we drove. Was a bit of a challenge finding parking.

Reserving: Recommended, so we did make them, on Touch Bistro. We were aiming for their seafood raw bar on the patio, and mentioned that in the reservation comments. We knew that option would get canceled in case of rain.

Service: The day was cloudy with risk of rain, so we weren’t sure what the restaurant would have decided to do about their seafood raw bar. On arrival, they told us that, despite what the Gaslight District tourist site said, they weren’t actually offering that menu at that time! Only brunch. However, they said they would still accommodate us and let us sit outside and order off raw seafood menu (and/or off the brunch).

I thought all that was excellent. Table service throughout the meal remained so.

Ambiance: Quite a nice patio, actually, because it’s in a quiet historic square in Cambridge. Restaurant indoors looked nice as well.

Drinks: They had a rose flight feature, whereupon you could pick three 2 oz servings among a choice of seven roses, one of which had apparently been dubbed the world’s best rosé. We were both intrigued by that, so we selected it and five others: two Ontario (one sparkling, one Pinot Noir), three French (“the best” and its cheaper cousin, along with another), and a Spanish. It was interesting comparing and contrasting those. “The best” was definitely the most complex, but the Spanish and the Ontario Pinot Noir were probably our favourites.

Close up of rose wine with others in the background.

Food: From the raw bar menu, we had oysters (shared), tuna crudo (me), and crab (Jean). Everything was delicious, though the crab was messy to eat. From the brunch menu, I added smoked trout salad (no, I wasn’t sick of seafood) and Jean had a foie gras danish—which might not be the best way to serve foie gras, but was still a quality dish.

Raw oysters with rose in the background.

Cox Creek Winery

This is a winery near Guelph that serves wood-fired oven pizzas and charcuterie. It was our first visit.

Getting there: We drove. They have a parking lot.

Reserving: Suggested but not required, but we did make them, using Tock.

Service: We went on a Wednesday, a quiet day overall, but with mainly one person to handle visitors. A couple was finishing up their tasting when we arrived, meaning we had to wait a bit for our turn to select wine tastings and get our charcuterie delivered. That was all fine. The server was very knowledgeable.

Ambiance: The winery is on a bit of country road, on a property with walking trails, so it was nice to sit outside there—except that there were quite a few wasps this time of year!

Drinks: Jean expressed some dubiousness about a Guelph winery, but they actually make some pretty nice wines—including a non-alcoholic sparkling. They also do some ciders and fruit wines. And they let us try the reserve Meritage, even though it wasn’t on the tasting list.

Food: No pizza on Wednesdays (we knew that), but the charcuterie board was excellent. They made their own relishes and honeys and stuff and Jean wanted to buy them all, but at this point, they aren’t for sale other than as part of the charcuterie board.

Niagara in summary

Espresso ice cream and chocolate moelleux.

Though we’ll probably be taking a break from this “tradition”, this year we again spent a few days in the Niagara-on-the-Lake area. I wrote up the full blurb here: Return to Niagara. This post is just a summary of the more notable items.

Best discoveries

Caroline Cellars and Farmhouse Cafe: Menu items almost all under $20. Glasses of wine $7 or less. Bottles of wine (to take home) under $20. And it was all very good! Not blow-off-your-socks good, but both food and wine were very enjoyable. Staff were friendly. A nice visit. A nice change.

Niagara Custom Crush Studio: It features the wines of multiple small wineries all under one roof, a cool idea that is well executed. On this visit, we tried wines from two wineries with very different approaches to wine making, which was super interesting.

NOTL: Treadwell’s sister restaurant, with a simpler menu and lower prices, but still excellent quality. And a bonus beautiful sunny dining room.

Weather report

Mixed bag for sure. We had one warm but cloud day; one cool but sunny day; one day with torrential rain / freezing rain / thunder / snow / wind; and yet another cool but sunny day. In between the inclement weather events, we did some walking and hiking.

Winery round-up

Best guide: Strewn, where our private, sit-down tasting was led by someone with a lot of experience and knowledge. Most fun: Fielding Estates, because we’re suckers for the snow globe experience (now done for the year). Best refuge: Reif Estates, from whence we watched the crazy storm while tasting wine and eating charcuterie. Most chaotic: Malivoire, who were supposed to be closed due to storm damage, but finally gave up and gave tastings.

The other dinners

Jean was underwhelmed by the offerings of Trius Winery, despite their Michelin star. Nothing bad—but maybe not star worthy? Beautiful plating, though.

Chicken pate with ornate topper.
Adorned chicken pate.

Treadwell’s was up to its usual high standards of food quality and wine pairings, but compared only to itself in the past, it was disappointing in terms of the experience. It was just your usual three-course meal with good service. We didn’t get our past feeling of it representing a really special night out.

Espresso ice cream and chocolate moelleux
Espresso ice cream and chocolat moelleux.

Ambling, eating, and a bit of biking: Quebec 2024

A couple weeks before, I was feeling somewhat despondent about our pending vacation to Quebec City and Montreal, as the weather forecast seemed to be predicting rain, with some more rain, then a side order of rain. 🌧

But as of a week before, the forecast had completed flipped to sun, more sun, and a side of sun. This really perked me up. But I still had to deal with the jitters and the actual work of prepping to go. (Hiring a housesitter is great for the cats, but does mean having to prepare the house for a guest along with organizing oneself to be away.) 😟

The first night of vacation, I was back to dispirited. Lying in an overheated hotel room on a gray day in the uninspiring town of Drummondville, Quebec after an indifferent meal of St Hubert chicken, I wondered what the points of this was. Wouldn’t I be better off in my house, with its working air conditioner, and cute kitties? 😿

Six nights later, after a lovely dinner of French food on a beautiful patio with my best guy, I felt relaxed and content. Which I guess was the point? 🌞

Jean on a patio in Old Montreal.

Itinerary

We were away from Sunday, September 8 to Saturday September 14.

  • Day 1: Just a driving day; we got as far as Drummondville, Quebec.
  • Days 2 to 4: Québec City
  • Days 5 and 6: Montreal
  • Day 7: Another driving day to back home

Activities

Mainly, it was a lot of ambling, first around the Old Town of Québec City, then around the various neighbourhoods of Montreal. While no longer in the height of summer, Québec City was still pretty crowded with tourists, especially when the huge cruise ships were docked. But our hotel was very centrally located, so it was easy to walk to any part of Old Quebec.

Quebec City view.
Lovely view of the Quebec City port

Montreal is always a busy big city, of course. Our hotel was close to both downtown and Old Montreal, but not in either. So here we supplemented the walking with taking the métro. Figuring out the metro cards was a bit frustrating, but the system itself was great.

Leonard Cohen mural over patios in Montreal.
Crescent Street in Montreal

I was pleased to find how much my French came back to me on this trip—not that you can’t manage in English in both cities. But living la vie bilingue again was fun.

We fit in a few other items between the ambling (and eating. A lot of eating.)

Musée de la civilisation (Museum of Civilization)

It’s quite modern and interactive and full of technological gizmos. Featured exhibits on gladiators in Rome and wrestling in Québec were pretty good. But my favourite was the section on Québecois rap. There you had to don head phones that activated based on what exhibits you were standing near. You got the history of that type of music in this part of the world, and samples of it. It was kind of neat!

Map of the world in clothing tags.
The only picture I have from the museum. This map of the world is made up of clothing tags.

Ile d’Orléans

We’ve been before, so didn’t do as many stops this time. The best new discovery was Du Capitaine—Ferme, Vinaigrerie, Distillerie (the captain—farm, vinegars, distillery). We spoke at length with the owner and got to try various interesting vinegars and liqueurs, then buy a number for home use.

Flowers.
Not sure this photo was taken on the island, but it was definitely taken on this trip!

The best revisit was Vignoble du Mitan, where they make a lot of wines with the Vancliche grape that is native to the island. The guide to our tasting was very knowledgeable tasting, and we found that we enjoyed quite a few bottles, so they got patriated, also.

Bike tour

In Montreal we signed up for a three-hour bike tour of the city. This was possible for me because Ca Roule Montreal (Montreal On Wheels) offers ebike options for all of their guided tours. I of course went with that, and Jean decided to do the same. I was somewhat worried about riding an ebike that wasn’t the one type I had, and with keeping up with the group, but these proved to be no problem. I adjusted pretty easily to the bike (found it easier than mine, in some ways) and kept up no problem, given that the other five people on the tour (and the guide) were on regular bikes.

Map of Montreal showing bike tour route.
This was the route we took

It was fun. The other participants were five guys from the States who were in Montreal for the first time. It was mostly on bike paths, which are very good in this city and were neat to experience. And we were guided through the street parts. We would stop and the guide would give us facts about the city. The only riding I found tricky was through McGill campus, simply because it was so crowded.

On the menu

So much eating! It was a great week in these two very foodie cities.

Coffees and cafes

Sure, you can get a good latte and some nice pastries in Waterloo. But it felt like these were just so everywhere, and so good, in Québec and Montreal. And even Drummondville! Whether the Van Houtte coffee chain, the independant Baguette et Chocolat that became our Québec City breakfast go-to, or the lovely Columbian Cafe in Montreal, it was all caffeinated bliss.

The fancy dinner

Tuesday evening was also somewhat cool in Québec, which made patio options a dodgy prospect that day. We’d been talking about getting back to Le St. Amour restaurant for some time, and Google Maps reported that Tuesdays were typically their quietest day.

There was still some hemming and hawing over whether to go, because on perusal of their menu, we weren’t sure about the entrée (main course) options. But yeah, in the end, we went, early, sans reservation, and they were able to accommodate.

Amuse of fish-shaped cracker thing on little pates.
Appetizers of various kinds of foie gras.
At St Amour, not being disappointed by the amuse bouche and the hors d’oeuvre

The wine ordering was interesting, as the menu is 75 pages. We picked one bottle out (there wasn’t much by the glass), but said we’d be open to other suggestions. The sommelier came back with a map of the world to show the various areas of the lighter-style red wines he’d suggest and why. In the end, we picked the cheapest one he recommended, which was $105.

It was in fact delicious.

I resolved my main course dilemma by ordering a large appetizer to start—the beautiful platter pictured above—then followed with another appetizer, a seafood medley. Jean was more traditional, and had an actual main course of lobster. And we both had dessert. I don’t now remember what that were, but it was fantastic. The whole meal was fantastic, the room still beautiful with its natural light and high ceiling (excellent CO2 readings!), the service perfection.

Patio moods

We had many meals on patios, but they each had their own “feel”.

La Buchette. Now we’re on vacation: Our first meal in Québec City, this popular restaurant is right on the main St-Jean stretch. It had an excellent charcuterie board.

Charcuterie board on patio with blue umbrellas and glasses of wine.
Entering vacation mode at La Buchette.

Le Lapin Sauté: Cozy and casual. Located in lower town, they specialize in duck and rabbit. We had the main course platter; all good, with amazing confit in particular. The desserts were also nice. And we talked to people at the neighbouring table here, a rarity for us!

Umbrellas and a big pink man in lower town Quebec, looking up at Chateau Frontenac.
Le Lapin Saute is near this area. The pink dude was part of an art installation. He showed up in various public spaces in both Québec City and Montreal.

L’Echaudé: Joie de vivre. A discovery of the trip, L’Echaudé is also in lower town, a French bistro. The appetizers and main courses were great, and we were both excited to see tarte au sucre (sugar pie) on the dessert menu (which we had in the form of a dessert platter with other delicious things).

Dessert platter of tarte au sucre, creme brulee, meringue, sorbet.
Duck confit.
Lobster popper.
Foie gras with toppings.
Gallery of items from L’Echaudé.

Terrasse Place d’Arme: Cinq à sept night life. A rooftop terrace in Old Montreal. It was crowded (but not too crowded), there was music (but not too loud), well-dressed people, and a great view. Food wasn’t bad, either! Nor was the company.

Jean on terrace at Place d'Armes.

Boqueria Tapa Bar: Bustling. We stopped at this busy tapas bar after our bike ride, when drinks and some smaller plates seemed just the ticket at this point. The first picture on this blog post was taken there.

Bistro La Fabrique: Date night. Our last dinner of the trip was selected and booked just a couple hours before we went, and what a capper! It was at a French bistro on St-Denis, which was nicely decorated with fabric and plants. Though busy inside, we had the patio almost to ourselves (which the waiter was mystified about, as it was an absolutely gorgeous day). It made for a lovely, relaxed dinner.

The menu was very France French, with wine offered by the cL instead of by the bottle or glass, and items like rillettes, terrine, and tartare. I had the slightly less French (I suppose) squash ravioli with beets, Brussels sprouts, hazelnuts, and wild mushroom foam—fantastic. For dessert, we puzzled over what a verrine was (same word used on French and English menus), but ordered it anyway. Turned out to be a jar, filled with fig, nectarine, apricot cream, lemon foam, and hazelnut praline crumble. Mm, mm, good.

Hotels: Meh

The Drummondville Travelodge, booked in Expedia enroute, was renovated and very clean, but as previously noted, was difficult to keep cool enough.

Our Québec City hotel, Terrasse Dufferin, had a great location right by the Chateau Frontenac. But the room was quite small and a bit run down. The bathroom sink had two separate faucets. The shower had trouble maintaining temperature. The room could be a bit stuffy. There was no hair dryer. That sort of thing.

Quebec City port and Chateau Frontenac.
Our hotel was right around here.

Our Montreal hotel, Le Nouvel Hotel, was the biggest and newest of the lot, and had the best-functioning climate control. It offered a Chromecast-type television service, but I couldn’t work out how to connect my apps to it. It also had a bit of cockroach issue…

Precautions

We took some of those! Covid projections for that time weren’t great, but we were lucky enough to be able to do most activities outdoors, and then we supplemented with:

  • Mini HEPA filter for the hotel rooms.
  • Antihistamines, H1 (Allegra) and H2 (Pepcid), taken daily.
  • Nasal sprays before and after more crowded maskless activities.
  • Respirator masks, for places like the Montreal métro (where, hey, we weren’t the only ones!).
  • Laminar personal air purifier to blow clean air onto my face when indoor dining. Less obtrusive than I initially feared (you can see it in the pictures of the St Amour).
  • CO2 monitor, which is merely informative, not actually protective. Biggest surprise: The great readings on the Montreal métro stations and trains.

Whoo, that’s a lot! But if it’s still not enough, you can read this again, with a bit more detail on some aspects, at this location: https://culturearchive.ca/quebec-city-and-montreal-2024/

Won’t whine about the amount of wine: Niagara 2024

We don’t pledge to continue this annually forevermore, but there’s no denying that this is the third year in a row we head to the Niagara area around now. In a lot of ways, it’s a good time to visit: it’s low season, so somewhat cheaper, and quite a bit less crowded—often resulting in better service. Weather of course can be iffy but that means, sometimes, it’s not bad!

Same destination, but that doesn’t mean it was all the same activities. These were the new:

  • Visiting Reif Estate Winery
  • Staying at Shaw Club, Niagara-on-the-Lake
  • Reserving Wine Dome Lounge at Fielding Estate Winery
  • Staying and dining at Inn on the Twenty, Jordan

And these were repeats, though not necessarily “same old”:

  • Dining at Peller Estates Winery
  • Wine tasting at Strewn Winery
  • Hiking the Niagara Glen trail
  • Dining at Treadwells
  • Hiking the Twenty Valley trail, Jordan

Despite knowing I was heading into wine country, I would not have predicted trying a $100 bottle of wine, nor a sherry nearly as old as I am. And yet!

Continue reading “Won’t whine about the amount of wine: Niagara 2024” →

Early to Timmins

Earlier this week, I realized I’d written Garbage on the date of December 25 on our paper calendar (yes, we still have a paper calendar).

Now, that wasn’t a reflection of my feelings about Christmas—at least not consciously! It’s just that Monday is our usual garbage pick-up day, and since they only accept trash bi-weekly (recycling and compost weekly), I put on the calendar which Mondays are the actual garbage pick-up days.

Only December 25 won’t be one of them. I’ll have to look up when they’ve moved that to. [Edit: That would be Tuesday, December 26.]

But December 25 is just a date, and you can choose to celebrate on other ones. Pre-2020, we almost always went to Timmins for actual Christmas, but also had our own Christmas celebration for two the weekend before that, complete with gifts and roast beast.

Post-2020, Jean can’t take extra vacation days right before or between Christmas and New Year’s, which makes it a bit tight to go north then. Last year I went to Timmins in earlier December with my sister; this year I did the same with Jean.

Continue reading “Early to Timmins” →

What a Jagged Little Pill

I decided to go see Alanis Morissette’s Jagged Little Pill: The musical because I am a big fan of Jagged Little Pill, the album, and indeed of much of her other oeuvre. But I didn’t know anything about the musical itself, or what kind of story they’d woven around the songs.

Jean agreed to go also because, well, because he’s a sport I guess, given that he hadn’t super enjoyed the last two musicals we’ve seen, the acclaimed Hamilton and the also acclaimed Rent. Couldn’t quite follow the former (lots of plot, admittedly), and couldn’t quite get the latter.

And what I wouldn’t give to find a soul mate?
Someone else to catch this drift
And what I wouldn’t give to meet a kindred?

All I Really Want, Alanis Morissette

Fortunately, Alanis, Diablo Cody (who wrote the book), and Glen Ballard (who co-wrote many of the songs), were kindred with Jean. He really enjoyed this musical. As did I. Because it was awesome!

The songs are used to tell the story of a year in the life of a family of four: the tightly wound Mary Jane, her workaholic husband Steve, their academically inclined son Nick, and their activist adopted daughter Frankie. Big, heavy topics are addressed: Sexual assault. Opioid addiction. Racism. Sexism. Some moments are super uncomfortable. But there’s a lot of humour in between. And all those great songs!

The playbill includes everything from Jagged Little Pill along with some selections from other albums, like “So Unsexy”, “Uninvited”, and “Thank U”. Lyrics are occasionally modified to suit the character and the situation. They really supported the story; none seemed to be just trotted out because they were big hits that needed including! “You Oughta Know” is not necessarily sung by whom you’d expect, to whom you’d expect, but it builds to an undeniable thrilling climax nonetheless. The audience responded ecstatically, as they should have.

But I had to laugh that after the line:

Why are you so petrified of silence? Here, can you handle this?

The audience totally could not handle the following silence, and had to fill it in with random clapping.

Anyway. This thing was really well cast, with the actors playing Mary Jane, Frankie, and Jo (a friend of Frankie’s) particularly standing out. Amazing singing voices, and just outstanding performances.

5 stars. No notes.

Getting there and back

This was in Toronto, so we had to make our way there. For Jean, this trip turned out to be the day after he got back from a later-scheduled work trip, so that wasn’t ideal, but he coped! We took Flixbus again. They’re finally using proper branded Flixbuses on the Kitchener-Toronto route (previously it was a generic bus), which even had wifi, albeit somewhat flaky.

For some reason we couldn’t seem to leave from our usual Waterloo stop, and had to get on at the Kitchener stop. Not a big deal—just meant staying on the Ion (our local light rail) for four stops instead of one. Still seemed odd, though, because on the way back, we did get off at the Waterloo stop.

Waterloo Park with fall foliage
Waterloo Park, which is near our usual Flixbus stop

The bus was weirdly overheated for the first portion of the trip back. I was starting to wonder if I could actually handle the entire 1 hour, 45 minute trip (not that it was clear what the alternative was) when the heat finally stopped pouring out.

We managed the Toronto subway pretty well also (we have Presto cards now!), though Google kept confusing us with mentions of line outages. Took us a while to realize that said outages were occurring much further up the line than we intended to go.

Other stuff we did

It was a quick trip: we left Saturday morning and returned Sunday morning. Of course, that was long enough that we needed a hotel room. We went with the Courtyard Marriott, which was a “mere” $300 or so for the night. Was nice that the room was available despite our arriving pretty early, around 11:00 AM, and even nicer that they gave us a little bag of snacks and bottles of water. Totally worth the $300! (I joke. But it actually was nice.)

We grabbed lunch from a Freshii, which, oddly, we’ve never eaten at before. It was good. We each had a smoothie and a wrap. Quite fascinating how much stuff they can fit into those wraps.

Since we have memberships, we spent a bit of time at the AGO (Art Gallery of Ontario). Their special exhibit was featured the artist Kaws, who does stuff like this:

Big red and gray bears
Pile of stuffed toys.

Which was kind of interesting. For one part, you had to download an app on your phone, then point it (the phone) at a particular spot in the gallery to see the art, as a 3D image. We took a picture after doing that, but are not clear on where that pic ended up…

And overall, we probably enjoyed the Cornelius Krieghoff room (part of the permanent collection) the most during this visit.

Our post-musical dinner was at Avelo, where we’ve been twice before. Since our last visit, though, they’ve changed things up. The beautiful room upstairs, where we sat both times previously, has been converted into a bar. Meals are now served downstairs, in a smaller, darker, noisier room. Since we had both envisioned the previous visits, we were a bit miffed.

To be fair, I think they had emailed me about these changes—it just hadn’t really registered. (I thought their new Bar Avelo was at some other location than our Avelo.) With generous table spacing and visible HEPA filters, the previous seating area felt as safe as a maskless, indoor dining experience could possibly be. And while the new downstairs room did still have a couple HEPA filters, and not all the tables in the small room were filled, it still didn’t feel as comfortable.

On the plus side, the food was still amazing from start to finish, the service was very good (though we still missed our upstairs guy), and the wine pairings were spot-on. It has lost what made special, though—other Toronto places also have good food, service, and wine.

(Not that Avelo needs me. From where I was sitting, I could overhear that the new bar was super-popular: so full that they had to turn people away.)

Swallow it down (what a jagged little pill)
It feels so good (swimming in your stomach)
Wait until the dust settles

You Learn, Alanis Morissette

But we didn’t dine on patios 24/7

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…

Four bottles of vinegar.

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.

Swan
Jean got a beauty picture here, eh?
Brown and green frogs.
Not just birds
Asters
Or just animals
Bird drying wings
But also birds.
Continue reading “But we didn’t dine on patios 24/7” →

“You have an *outside*?”

Patio summer, travel edition

Most people don’t really get our restaurant thing. They enjoy eating, but to actually see dinner at a restaurant as an experience in itself (not just as a good place to meet friends), or as something you might build a vacation around (versus something you might have to do while on vacation)… It’s not that common.

And I get it. I don’t think most people are weird because they wouldn’t rather spend time and money on that than other experiences. Clearly Jean and I are the weird ones. (On a lower budget scale, we are the type of people satirized in the movie The Menu.)

But I just don’t love restaurants enough to throw all caution to the wind and risk crowded indoor meals night after night. This has made travel planning stressful, because on the other hand, I also don’t think I’d be very happy with my trip if it mainly consisted of street hot dogs and takeout meals eaten in my hotel room.

So for Fall vacation this year, I pushed for September instead of October, with the thought that maybe the patios will still be open.

This is how it went.

Continue reading ““You have an *outside*?”” →