At one point, Stéphanie, our guide, affectionately dubbed us “the toilet group.”
Because this particular walking group was heavily weighted toward women of a certain age, which meant that we all spent an inordinate amount of time waiting around until everyone had a chance to go pee.
On the Amalfi walking tour we’d done previously, pretty much every walk included a stop in the middle of it at a cafe or convenience store where, for the price of a coffee or chocolate bar, anyone who needed to could also use the facilities.
But on these France walks, it seems you often had an opportunity only at the start, then at the end of the walk. Of course, at the start, the urgency tends to not be so great, but then there’s that concern: If I skip this chance, how bad will be the wait for the next one? Hence, the waiting around for the pre-emptive bladder emptying.
For me, though, other aspects factored into the decision of whether to go now, or wait it out. Because with French public toilets, you never really know what you’re going to get. And I don’t just mean missing toilet paper.
Flashback: It’s 1992, we’re in Dieppe, France, and I really have to go. So we stop in for a meal at a restaurant. After giving our orders, I head toward the facilities, have a look, and immediately head back to the table.
“I can’t use that,” I tell Jean.
He, mystified, heads to the facilities to see for himself what horrors await. He shortly returns, laughing.
It was my first encounter with a Turkish-style toilet.
We’ve been to France a number of times since, and I had never encountered another such facility—until this trip. In fact, calling it a “toilet” problem isn’t accurate, as all it is, literally, is a hole in the ground, with two spots for your feet.
And I still can’t use that, so when it was on offer, I was definitely skipping that “opportunity”.
The French also have a certain concern with cleaning the facilities between use, which of course is nice—unless you’re not aware of the method of cleaning. Like, that when you pull the cord to flush, it will also spray water around to clean the whole general area! Regardless of whether you’re still in there…
And no, I did not get caught in that, but others in my group did, having to spend some time in wet pants afterward.
Thereafter, I would skip that style of bathroom as well.
Then there were the pay toilets that require exact change, though that isn’t as bad when you’re in a group, because someone can usually help you out. Some of those also have a cleaning cycle between use, which—again—is nice, only it’s not a super-fast process, so you’re extending the group wait by lining up for those. One them actually conked out after two uses.
Another more modern example had a voice guiding me through the bathroom process (all in français, of course): thanking me for choosing the lower-water flush option and explaining the actual flush would occur after I exiting; warning that I had 20 minutes (20 minutes!) before the door would fly open; etc. It was sort of hilarious.
Then on one walk we actually did stop midway at cafe with a perfectly normal toilet, and what did I do? I became inexplicably unable to unlock the door until those outside told me I was just turning the lock the wrong way.
Nevertheless, I did not give up on cafe bathrooms.
The two things I fretted about most before our “Walking the French Riviera” tour were fitness and weather. Though the tour was classified as leisurely / moderate, we’d found with the Amalfi walking tour that the Exodus definition of “moderate” could result in pretty seriously sore muscles. So this time I thought I’d prepare a bit, by doing more workouts that emphasized lower body strength.
But for weather, obviously, all you could do was try to bring clothing suitable to different conditions. (Even if it doesn’t all match.)
We went on five walks in total, all focused on a different aspect of the Riviera landscape. Our excellent guide Stéphanie would stop at various points to give information about what we were seeing around us. Though interesting, I wasn’t great at remembering that many of those details.
I have no trouble, however, remembering the weather each day.
Walk 1: Cap Martin
This one started right from our hotel in Menton. We did a seaside walk around a cape, then went up into the medieval town of Roquebrune. And though I say “up”, this walk was more on the leisurely side of leisurely / moderate, with an elevation gain of 350 m. Length was 12 km.
We were pleased to find that we were in the fitter half of the walking group of 12, and even more pleased to find that although rain was predicted for the day, it was more like just cloudy. There were a few sprinkles, but nothing too bothersome, and not really interfering with the views.
View of Monaco from the trail
We saw interesting vegetation in the Cap part—olive trees, lemon trees, cactus (which Jean got a little too close to), pepper trees (like, the spice. Which I didn’t know grew on trees.). And Roquebrune was a fairly dramatic, somewhat Italian-looking city. This part of the France is very close to Italy, in fact, and a lot of areas have traded back and forth between the two countries over the years.
Castle in Roquebrune
Walk 2: Sospel
This was our first mountain walk, a bit more of challenge because of the ascent (460 m) and because the path was rougher. To get to the trail start, we took a bus along the narrow, twisty mountain road. The day was predicted to be nice, so I decided to omit the rain pants and waterproof backpack cover, to make things a little lighter.
We pretty much started with an hour’s climbing, but found it quite doable. Our guide was very good at keeping a reasonable, steady pace, so no one got worn out by early over-ambition. Of course, we would stop periodically for the slower ones to catch up. We learned about some of the wild animals in this part of France— though the only ones we saw were squirrels, we did see evidence of boars, who dig up big piles of dirt. We learned that wolves had been wiped out in France, but they are now migrating back from Italy—which isn’t pleasing the French farmers.
At the top was a bunker, built around 1934 in anticipation of war.
We climbed up above this, where there is now a popular site for para-gliding, so a bunch of astro-turf has been laid down. Not the usual thing to see on a mountain top.
We had lunch here, and it was all very pleasant, until some nasty clouds started gathering.
So we gathered up our stuff and started heading down. But there’s only so fast you can climb down a mountain trail. And it did start to rain. And then it rained harder. And then there was thunder and lightning. And then there was hail.
(That would be one thing I hadn’t fretted about in advance: What if I’m caught in a hail storm.)
It soon turned back to rain, and it was just miserable. My jacket was waterproof, but I hadn’t put the hood up in time, so water eventually gathered in there and started running down into the jacket. I had gloves, but they weren’t truly waterproof. No rain pants, and “quick dry” pants aren’t so useful when being constantly rained upon. At least my waterproof boots appeared to hold (though I later found they were little wet inside; I think the wicking socks did their job).
When we got to Sospel, the rain had finally stopped. We had a bit of a wait for the bus, so we toured around the town a bit. But in the time it took us to get a coffee, it started pouring again for our walk to the bus stop. Yay.
At least the bus was warm and dry.
Walk 3: Monaco to Eze
We did manage to dry everything out overnight, partly thanks to our heated towel rack, and the Tuesday forecast was really good. Nevertheless, I packed rain pants, as I would for all remaining walks.
This would be the most challenging walk, I think, because of a significant descent required—775 m. But we cut out some of the ascent by taking the train to Monaco [I’ll do a separate post on some of the city visiting we did], then a bus to La Turbie.
From here, we climbed, getting amazing views all the way. It was just a perfect day weather-wise, as though a reward for the previous day.
Then, after lunch, began a long series of downs, first to town of Eze, a town built on the edge of a cliff.
The group walking down to the Eze, the clump of buildings on the right
Being in Eze itself was a little weird, as it consists of weaving, tunnel-like streets, so you feel a bit like a rat in a maze going through it. But we did stop for a drink at a cafe before doing the final descent, down to the seaside.
There were a lot of stairs at this stage, and many people found that pretty challenging. Again, Jean and I did fairly well with it. I thought I might have sore muscles the next day, but I was pretty good. I guess the working out worked out. (Jean claimed to be fine also, but I did catch him sneaking Naproxin.)
Walk 4: Saint Jean Cap Ferrat
This was the walk after our “free” day, and it was the flattest of them all, just around two capes, through beach front.
It was a beautiful day, and a beautiful easy 11 km walk on nice paths. We started with a train ride (France has a fantastic train network, by the way) to Beaulieu-sur-Mer, then just walked the easy route. Whereas other walks had been more isolated, here there were many beaches, and so many people out sunning themselves.
We finished this walk around 2:00, leaving us enough time to visit the Villa Ephryssi de Rothschild, which I’ll cover separately.
Walk 5: Castellar Menton
This was another mountain walk, and the forecast wasn’t great, so I wasn’t as much looking forward to this one. Still, the morning was very nice. The plan was to take a small bus to the town of Castellar, then walk up to the Italian border, and back down to Menton.
The road to Castellar was even more twisty than the Sospel road. We walked through the small mountain town before heading up on the trail. It was a fairly easy one as uphill climbs go, as the path was pretty wide and the ascent gradual. The path to the Italian border was more challenging, as it was narrower and more rocky. But everyone made it up.
Nice views up here, must say
We did have a good morning, but once again, on the way down, it started to rain. Lighter rain, though. And yes, this time, I had the rain pants, and put up my hood, so it wasn’t too bad. We actually had a choice here, of taking the bus or walking back to Menton. In the light rain, everyone agreed to do the walk down.
Except then it started to pour. And as we got wetter, more and more people started to change their minds about walking. Until finally, Stéphanie (the guide) declared that we were all taking the bus! She felt it would be too slippy to attempt the walk down (had there been any volunteers remaining for it).
We did get off the bus at an earlier stop, though, to have some time to tour the old cemetery of Menton.
We’re just back from a trip to the French Riviera, and I expect I’ll be writing a few blog posts about that.
I feel a need to start, though, by explaining my attire.
I have travelled the world (well, Europe and the Americas, anyway) with this green hat that has served me well, and that I still have, but for this new vacation, which was a walking tour, I felt it was time for a new one.
Jean’s had a series of hats over this same time frame, most of them Tilley Endurables brand. This is a Canadian company that was built around these well-made, lifetime guarantee, water resistant, floatable, breathable, hats. So I thought I’d get me one of those.
And I just couldn’t resist the bright red one. It was fun, it seemed to suit me, it was Tilley.
What I didn’t think about what that red just doesn’t match with everything. And it particularly didn’t match either of my Gortex jackets, one turquoise and purple, another pale mauve, that were basically the required outwear for a walking tour. And though I didn’t have to wear the jackets all the time (mostly, we had nice weather), it also didn’t go with my light blue top, or my deep blue top, or my purple top, which again were of the breathable fabric one kind of has to wear when exerting oneself outdoors.
Me, clashing, in the small medieval town of Roquebrune
Then at one point, we got enough rain that I felt compelled to pull out the rain pants, which I hadn’t worn since the 1980s, and were therefore a lovely 1980s turquoise green. So picture this in your mind: Turquoise green pants, pale mauve jacket (if only I had the other coat that day, but no!), and red hat.
In fact, you’ll have to picture that just in your mind, because I refused to let Jean take any photographic evidence of it.
Here, up in the French alps, wearing the only “outdoor” shirt that somewhat matched the hat…
Why Toronto in February, when the weather, much more often than not, is abysmal? Two words: free hotel. Jean goes there for a work-related conference; hotels don’t charge extra for another person staying in the room.
Considering how bad this winter has been in general, the weather picture wasn’t so bad. The temperature had been in deep freeze all week, but rose for that weekend. KW was expecting a lot of snow Saturday (and that materialized), but Toronto, not quite as much (also materialized).
The main issue was that the snow they did get was very wet, as it was near the freezing mark, and we did do a ton of walking outside in it on Saturday afternoon. Tiring of the wet hair, I bought a hat with a brim, but there wasn’t much to be done about the wet coat collar, or the wet pant bottoms. And the “waterproof” boots eventually caved in under the pressure, allowing water in at the seams. Squish, squish!
I had no other footwear with me, so while I could and did change into dry pants and socks for dinner, the best I think of boot-wise was putting the feet in plastic bags in the wet boots. That did keep the feet dry when I was outside. Once sitting inside, though, eventually, there was a bit of a perspiration issue…
But hey, it really was nice to get away. Friday night Jean had a conference dinner, so I went out with my sister and her husband to Bangkok Garden, where they were offering a Winterlicious menu that was, in fact, quite delicious, along with being a good deal. My sister and I both had the options of mussels in lemongrass and beer sauce, rainbow trout with pineapple red curry, and chocolate chai mousse for dessert.
Jean remained occupied Saturday morning, so after breakfast (really good waffles with walnuts and banana), I decided to go check out the Bata Shoe Museum for the first time.
It had four floors of exhibits. The basement presented shoes though history, including the very oldest pair of shoes ever found:
The next floor showed footwear of famous people, such Elvis Presley, Elton John, John Lennon, and Justin Beiber. (Beiber’s “Baby, Baby, oh” song proved to be the biggest earworm.) The second floor covered traditional shoemaking, a somewhat endangered endeavour. And the top floor was for special exhibits. Currently it’s on sneaker culture, something I previously knew nothing about. Like, people spend big money on sneakers. They riot over particular limited editions of them. They build up huge collections, so they never have to repeat the same pair. One dude had enough to cover the next three years—new pair every day.
We had been thinking of going to the ROM Saturday afternoon, but I felt museumed-out, and Jean was somewhat stir-crazy from all the hotel time, so that become our soggy walk afternoon.
For supper we went to George on Queen, a restaurant with a good reputation. It’s a nice room with notably well-dressed patrons and excellent service. They specialize in multi-course meals, but we went for just three (rather than five or seven).
We were quite blown away by the first course, which was centered around duck for me, and smoked trout for Jean.
All the elements on the plate really worked, and were creative and fun.
The next two courses, of tuna and lobster, then seabass and arctic char, were very good. But they couldn’t quite match up to the standard of the first, so you couldn’t help feeling a bit let down. For dessert, we just shared some cheese, and I had an ice wine while Jean had an Italian sweet sparkling.
On the walk back from George
Sunday we met up with sister and husband again, this time at a dim sum restaurant, the Crown Princess. This one is fancier than most and doesn’t feature the usual little carts; instead you have to order from a menu. The items were of a very high standard, definitely above the average dim sum place (though I also like that). And it wasn’t really that expensive.
Good job that we aimed to arrive by 11:00, because it got busier and busier as we were sitting, until there was quite a lineup. We had the table right by the door, where the hungry people in line could watch us eat. A bit awkward!
Compared with people spending Christmas in unheated, unlit homes or stuck in airports, I can’t really complain about our Christmas travel.
We had more time this year, and therefore decided to drive north, figuring we could then adjust our own itinerary as weather demanded rather than be dependent on the airline’s.
We left the weekend of the ice storm, after the smaller Friday night one ended, before the bigger Saturday one started. The roads weren’t fantastic at the start of that trip, and some bits were quite foggy. So it was slow, but we didn’t really have any problems. Eventually we drove out of the storm zone and were driving on bare pavement. We even got a bit of sun.
We decided to lay over in North Bay despite their predicted 25 cm of snow the next day. The usual 4.5 hour drive took us 6 hours, so it was nice to have a break. We also quite enjoyed our first dinner at Churchill’s, a restaurant listed in Where to Eat in Canada. It’s an older place with a warm atmosphere and an impressive wine list. We enjoyed a bottle of Malbec with appetizers of gnochi and asparagus, and calamari and tomato, both excellent. For mains I had the roast duck with potatoes and salad, while Jean had wagu (a type of beef) ribs. I found the duck a little overdone, but everything else was good. For dessert, I had three tastings of creme brulee (coconut, chocolate and sambuca, and maple), while Jean had a Greek-style dessert.
Dessert at Churchill’s
The next day it was back on the road, indeed in snow. It was fairly blowy not long after taking off, but it gradually lessened as we moved north, and finally ended completely. Back to driving on pavement.
Timmins was cold this year. Highs of -20C, maybe -18C most of the time we were there. Dropping to -30 something overnight. Nevertheless, we did get out to do stuff. We went snow shoeing one day; by far the worst part was putting on the snowshoes in the windy parking lot. Once on the trails, it was actually fine. (Of course, we were well bundled up.) We went for a decent length walk the next day, and survived.
It finally warmed up some on Christmas day, to -11 or so—balmy! But with the hustle and bustle of visitors that day, I barely got outside.
Mostly anyway, we were spending time with family indoors, at somebody’s house or another’s. Always nice to celebrate together.
Not sure my family wants their photos posted here, so won’t, but here’s me…
Part of the indoor entertainment at my parents’ is watching the activity at the outdoor bird feeder. Northern birds have such nice colors! Jean spent one morning gathering pictures of them. I wish I could remember all of their names, as Dad reported them to me. (Even when it comes to birds, I’m bad with names.)
This large woodpecker is too big to just perch on the edge of the feederSo he (or she) has to hang on from underneath, balance with the tail, and reach in for the peanutsThis smaller bird (blue jay?) has it easierAction shot! Love this one
(Our drive back was largely unremarkable, weather-wise. One brief bit of blowing snow, and that’s all.)
… because a week later, it’s pretty easy to forget that, what with all the gray and cold and even snow.
Fortunately, we were on vacation the previous week. It did start in Timmins, for the previously blogged-about wedding and funeral.
Timmins had just glorious weather while we were there, with highs around 20. We went for two big walks during our visit, one on the Ski Runners property, another through the “tailings rehabilitation” area at the end of the road my parents live on. Interesting to see how far that went, in an area that was largely off-limits to me when I lived here as a kid. At one point we had “beautiful lake and fall colors” on the left, “ugly open mining pit” on the right. That’s the north for you.
On Tuesday we drove to Ottawa, our biggest day of driving for the trip, as we split up the Timmins trip by stopping in Barrie overnight on the way up. So besides driving, all we had time for of note was dinner with friends, which I’ll write about separately.
Wednesday morning, for the first time on the trip, it was a bit drizzly, so we visited the Museum of Nature. It was our first time there since the exhibits were fully open, and it was fun to see everything. They had a special exhibits on ants, and another one on frogs.
We stepped into another worldWith strange creatures
The rain had mostly stopped by noon, so after a sushi lunch we just did some walking around and photo taking, and visited a Bernard Callebaut chocolate store I’d spotted the night before on Dalhousie. Very good.
The nation’s capital can look grandVery grand indeed.
The next day we drove to the Finger Lakes region of New York. (Did we drive too much on this trip? Probably.) Our B&B turned out to be this huge, gorgeous old house in Montour Falls — right beside those falls, in fact, and near a church that had become a private residence. (Would love to know how they converted the interior into living space.) The B&B included a great breakfast with all kinds of fruit, baked beans, eggs, bacon, and on on, and it was interesting talking to the other guests, who were mostly Americans, but there was a young German couple staying there as well.
Our humble abode for the trip
We didn’t do a whole lot the first day but walk around Montour Falls itself.
But on Friday, we decided to emphasize the hiking, as the forecast threatened possible rain on Saturday. We started with Watkins Glen State Park, which had really nice trails through a canyon going around and even behind waterfalls. It included a fair number of stairs but wasn’t really that arduous; nothing like our Italian walking trip! Things were wet after all that rain, so we were glad of waterproof boots and rain jackets, but the weather was nice.
On the stairs, in the canyonSome of the falls
Our afternoon hike was to another set of falls in a canyon, but this trail was just flat and didn’t bring you quite as close to the falls as the other had. It was pretty, though.
Hike to the fallsOverland view of falls
Our dinner reservations were near this set of falls, and we ended up with some time to kill. We visited a few little towns, including one with a chocolate shop, so I stocked up on more of those. (My favorite local chocolate shops seem to keep closing on me.)
Saturday ended up being not so rainy after all. We started with a visit to a big market in Penn Yan, which was fun and provided me with a new purse. We then hit some wineries. Did you know there are about 110 (!) in this region? We got to 3.
The first was the big complex of Bully Hill. It’s very busy, but they do their wine tastings “en masse” here, with two guys providing lively banter as they pour everyone their choice of two options for a total of five tastings. It was fun, and there were two wines we would have bought if we hadn’t been concerned about wine limits when going over the border.
View from Bully Hill
Once we found it, our next stop was Rasta Ranch, which has a real hippie vibe to it, with tie-dyed clothes and Jim Morrison posters for sale. A long-haired dude gave us a free-flowing sample of various options that were unusual, though not necessarily fantastic. Still, Jean was taken with the name of the Ja’maca Me Blush! wine and wanted to buy that. I then noticed Bohemian Raspberry, which they let me taste. Actually pretty good–very raspberry, not too sweet. So we got a bottle of that, too.
Driving in Finger Lakes wine country
The best winery, wine-wise, was Chateau LaFayette Renau. We would have bought a bottle of everything we tasted had we, again, not been concerned about wine limits at the border. These included a nice 2007 Pinot, a delicious 2010 Cabernet Sauvignon, a semi-sweet red blend that didn’t come across as that sweet, a very pleasant semisweet Rieseling, and a dessert wine based on the Niagara grape, the same one used in Welch’s grape juice, but here turned into a surprisingly pleasant drink.
Mainly, we wanted a little getaway. Lots of advantages to travelling in the off-season, which is why we do, but it also kind of bites when everyone else is taking vacation and you’re not. So we thought we’d at least go somewhere on the long weekend in August.
Only we left that decision kind of late, which definitely limited our options on where to go. We looked into the Finger Lakes region of New York State—not the cheapest area—but even though it wasn’t a long weekend there, we couldn’t get the accommodations we wanted. Port Stanley had availability on Sunday night, but not Saturday. Other Ontario inns were a similar story.
So, we ended up at the Pelee Motor Inn in Leamington. The name of it sort of played on our mind, and we got worried we’d be staying at some semi-dive. But it turned out to be a perfectly nice hotel. We had a big room with a king size bed, sitting area, fridge, microwave (which we didn’t use, but there it was!). It also had this huge swimming pool and games area, with water slides, and badminton courts, and whatnot (which we didn’t use either, because it always seemed rather full of kids, but there it was!)
We didn’t have big ambitions for the trip. We planned to visit some wineries, do some hiking in the parks, try to find some decent places to eat, despite nothing much being listed for the area in Where to Eat in Canada. And Jean hoped to get some photos.
Lake Erie
On the way down we stopped in Port Stanley, going to the always good Me and Suzies for lunch. We ate on their patio. We shared Lake Erie smelts to start, which were great. Jean followed up with perch, while I had chicken tagine. His was better. From their all-Ontario wine list, we tried a glass of sparkling wine from 20 Bees, which was very drinkable, along with an interesting (in a good way) white blend from Organized Crime, called Mischief. (I think both must be restaurant wines, as neither seems available for sale from those wineries.)
Another stop on the way, just on a whim, was at Smith and Wilson winery. This proved a good thing, as we really enjoyed their wines. They had a nice, drinkable sparkling called Pearl that we bought a couple bottles of. I also tasted a black cherry wine which was very nice—and not so sweet as to be un-pairable with food. But the best, though, was their 2007 Gallantry Syrah/Cabernet Sauvignon blend, a truly lovely red wine for only $18 a bottle. We bought a couple of those also.
On arrival in Leamington, we went for a little walk around the harbour, and for some reason stopped to read about each and every one of the many shipwrecks that had occurred in these waters.
We had dinner reservations at Oxley Estate Winery. It’s an interesting location, in a converted barn. A lot of people were sitting outdoors to dine, but we were warned that the bugs were coming out, so we sat inside. But it was freezing in there! Way over-air conditioned; I had to fetch a jacket from the car.
(c) Oxley Estate Winery
Except for that, it was a pretty pleasant meal. The highlights were definitely the appetizers: Really delicious little lamb chops that I started with, and shrimp over Thai vegetables that Jean had. For mains I had perch, which was maybe slightly over-breaded, and Jean had pork chops with delicious beans. As wines we tried their Riesling and Pinot Noir. Both were fine, but not impressive enough that we felt a need to purchase a bottle of either.
The next morning we headed to Point Pelee, having concluded it would be too complicated to navigate ferries to get to Pelee Island. It was a very nice day again, so we did some hiking. Though always pleasant to walk in the woods, and though always kind of neat to look at the Great Lakes (so much water! so little salty sea scent!), we did not find it particularly spectacular. It’s quite flat, does not have especially interesting vegetation, and we did not see much wildlife.
We were impressed by this spider web in the park. There were “Spider Control” ads all over Leamington. We weren’t sure if that was about controlling spider infestations, or about using spiders to control insects…
They did have an exhibit of various Ontario snakes there, that you could touch and everything, but Jean did well just to go near them; he wasn’t up to taking photos. (I offered to, but he didn’t seem to want that, either.)
We also took the shuttle to the Tip, so now we’ve been at the southern-most point of Canada.
Our lunch this day isn’t worth going on about; that was our one bad meal.
But on happier note, we then visited more wineries! Viewpointe Estates we visited partly for the view, but we did also try some wines. We weren’t bowled over by them, but we did leave with their refreshing 2008 Sauvignon Blanc, along with their rather smooth 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon—pretty well aged for an Ontario wine.
The grounds at Viewpointe Estates. We did walk around, but did not have a drink on their patio.
We next visited a newer one called Cooper’s Hawk. They did particularly well with off-dry whites, and Jean seemed particularly in the mood for those, so we left with Pinot Grigio, a Chardonnay Musque, and a really interesting, effervescent Riesling / Gewurtz blend called Touché.
Though we’d originally planned to stop at two, we ended up also visited Black Bear Farms Winery, which had been recommended to us by the Smith and Wilson folks. They do only fruit wines (and here Jean would point out that grapes are a fruit, so OK, they make wines only with fruits other than grapes). And everything tasted pretty darn delicious—sweet, but not too sweet, not ice wine sweet. So the key was not trying too many types, or you’d whole cases of the stuff. As it was, we left with a blueberry, a red raspberry, a red / purple raspberry, and an elderberry (blended with some strawberry and raspberry).
I did some serious research afterward, in an effort to find a decent place for dinner. We ended up at Mettawas Station in Kingsville. It’s in an old train station, which was neat.
Side view of Mettawas Station Restaurant in Kingsville
Service was unsophisticated, but good, and most importantly, food was quite delicious. I had the escargot in portobello mushrooms, which was nice; very moderate in cheese. Jean had tomato, basil, and bocconcini—hard to go wrong. We both had pasta mains: Jean the gnocchi, me the “Athena” with olives, roasted red peppers, feta, white wine sauce. They do very well with pasta. After much debate, we had a Pellee Island red blend (2010 Vinedressers) that we quite enjoyed.
Very good pasta
There was a bit of confusion over our taking home the leftover wine, but it was sorted, and we left with the corked bottle.
Monday was mostly travel, but after breakfast and checkout, we did visit Mastronardi wines, in Kingsville (and bought some peaches from a stand along the way). We weren’t too bowled over by their wines, but did get the 2008 Cabernet Merlot. We stopped in Port Stanley for lunch again on the way back, this time dining at the Windjammer Inn. Quite a pleasant outdoor lunch there, of baked goods followed by more Lake Erie fish.
I can’t give you such a thing, but if you’re interested, head on over to The Wandering Gourmet—an interesting blog anyway, for those into travel and food—and leave a comment on this post saying what you might like to subscribe to. That’s all there is to it. (But hurry; only a few left.)
Zinio, you may recall, offers a wide assortment eMagazines that you can read that you can read on any tablet or PC (or smart phone, I guess, though I personally would not try reading a magazine on that small a screen). I am quite fond of their service.
Seated in the third row of the Avon Theatre at Stratford, engrossed in our conversation, Jean and I were nearly jolted from our seats by the extremely loud opening chords of “The Overture”.
Judging by the nervous giggling all around us, we weren’t the only startled patrons. Welcome to The Who’s Tommy, live on stage at Stratford, Ontario.
Spot The Who amongst the literature at a Stratford bookstore
I enjoyed it very much, of course. Having seen it back in the 1990s in Toronto, I suspected I would. This version has more complex staging, more special effects. I couldn’t tell you what the differences are; I don’t remember well enough. But I can tell you this is one of the most elaborately staged musicals I’ve ever seen. There were always things to look at, all around the stage. (And from the third row, that sometimes made for a sore neck.)
So the one critique this production has received is that the effects and all are too much; that they overwhelm the excellent cast. Jean and I would disagree with that. Tommy is big rock musical with big themes. It and its cast are only enhanced by staging that matches those ambitions. And I, for one, did not find that it diminished the play’s emotional impact. I remain touched by Tommy’s situation.
As I know both the album and the movie inside and out, I found it interesting to see how the story was adapted for the stage. I had recalled, from the Toronto production, that the story is somewhat softened from the movie version, both necessary (to not restrict the play to those 18 and over) and a relief, given that the Uncle Ernie, Cousin Kevin, and Acid Queen happen to the 10-year-old Tommy in the play, unlike the Daltrey-aged Tommy in the movie. (And no, little Tommy is not left alone with a hooker; his father merely toys with the idea before coming to his senses.)
But I had forgotten tons of things, like the interplay of Tommy at ages 4, 10, and 20something, which both dramatizes the character’s extreme self-imposed isolation, and allows us to enjoy the performance of lead actor Robert Marcus in the first half, before Tommy grows up; the very different handling of the Sally Simpson story (at least compared with the movie); and the much bigger role of Cousin Kevin—which is great, as he’s played by the wonderful Paul Nolan (Jesus in last year’s Jesus Christ Superstar).
Most especially, I’d forgotten that lyrical changes that turned “We’re Not Gonna Take It” into Tommy’s refusal to lead his followers into his world of isolation, whereas both album and movie had Tommy trying to do just that, and them rebelling. (Of course, the followers reject him here as well—only for a completely opposite reason.)
There are many other lyrical changes (for example, “21” refers to the mother’s age rather than the year), but only one new song appears in this production: “I Believe My Own Eyes”, which provides the segue into “Smash the Mirror” (without any need of the movie’s baked beans and melted chocolate). It’s very much a Broadway song, more so than a Who tune, but having bought the soundtrack, I do find myself humming it at times, which is interesting.
As I’ve already suggested, I thought the cast was very good, and on a shallow note, I found young Mr. Marcus very attractive, looking rather better on that stage than he did in his publicity photos. Jean was similarly struck by the lovely Kira Guloien as Mrs. Walker.
Gotta say that one thing really lost in the stage version is the power and potency of the “Listening to You” final chorus that you get from hearing The Who play that live. But a play is a different animal than a rock concert. And this one is also worth experiencing, in my opinion.
Select quotes
“At least now I know why Tommy was deaf, dumb, and blind. I never understood that before.” — Jean
“I was hoping that I would know at least one song. Just one. But I didn’t recognize any of them.” — My Mom
“Oh my God. The music is by Pete Townshend? Of The Who? Oh my God. This is terrible!” — Lady sitting behind me
Après theatre dining
If you do go to Stratford, for Tommy or other, I might suggest dinner or lunch at La Taverna, which is a new section of Pazzo restaurant, as we very much enjoyed our meal there. It’s pretty small, but a pleasant room, with a comfortable feel. Sound level would have been fine, except we had a big Italian family dining next to us! 🙂 And the service was very good.
Appetizer
We started by sharing oysters, and a bocconcini bruschetta with figs and prosciutto (not pictured, but very nice).
Main course
Jean had a very nice gnocchi dish as his main, while I went with the fish special of the day.
Dessert
And we concluded with an arborio rice pudding for Jean and a “baked vesuvius” for me, that being a limoncello-soaked cake with lemon gelato and cardomom meringue. Delish.
We’d contemplated doing an overnighter this long weekend, but ultimately decided that a day trip would do. We decided to visit the little town of Fergus. Turns out to be a pretty quaint little place, with a lot of historic buildings. Many of the homes sport signs indicating the previous inhabitants’ name and occupation: landlord, farmer, shoemaker. The Grand River runs through it, and that lends it some interest as well:
Grand River in Fergus
It also had some nice trails.
Walk in the woods in Fergus
I also enjoyed its I Love Chocolate! store. And, we’d been hearing about how it had this fabulous Indian restaurant, so we tried that for lunch. It’s called Tandoori Grill. We decided to make it easy on ourselves and have the set Dinner for Two. This started with three small pieces of chicken tikka, and three small vegetable pakora. Both were tasty and came with three really nice dipping sauces.
That was followed by a chicken curry, a beef curry, (can’t recall exactly which ones of either of those) and veggie curry with cauliflower, chick peas, and potatoes. Served with rice and naan. This was clearly a place where they ground their own spices, which makes such a huge difference to the taste. The beef—something we normally wouldn’t have ordered—had fantastic texture and slightly sweet taste. The chicken was more “lively”, though the spice wasn’t excessive—it had more of cumulative effect.
Meal at Tandoori Grill in Fergus
So if you like Indian, and you find yourself in Fergus, I’d recommend this place.
We stopped in on Elora on the way home, acquiring yet more Rieker shoes! I also picked up some amazing champagne citrus vinegar at the Olive Grove.
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