Day 3 - To Quebec City

Before leaving the hotel about 09:00, we grabbed a few items from the breakfast spread then headed out. Drove to a renown bagel place, St. Viateur Bagel & Café on Mont-Royal Street. Both the guidebook and several Youtube travel clips rave about these specialties. It was busy but the line moved quickly. We ordered and watched them make and bake the bagels in the back. When we got our order, it was worth the wait. Done there, we headed out of Montreal south and mostly east making for the area called the Eastern Townships along the A-10 freeway. We turned off that onto secondary roads to explore the rural side of Quebec. This area is known for hiking, biking, and winter sports as well as vineries. It is only a few miles from Vermont and New Hampshire. We drove past Lake Brome to Lake Memphremagog and stopped at the Benedictine Abbey of Saint Benoit du Lac. This beautiful, peaceful place is a working monastery that produces apples, apple products and a variety of cheeses. The abbey building is a modern, austere house of contemplation and worship. We toured the abbey and church (completely renovated in 1999 and shopped the gift store. We took some of the food we’d been carrying and added the cheese and sparkling hard cider we’d bought at the gift shop and had a wonderful lunch on the picnic tables overlooking the abbey and lake. A fabulous setting and great stop!

More back roads heading a bit north of east through Sherbrooke and along the C-112. This is farm country (mainly dairy, it seems) with wide rolling fields and wooded hills. We noticed the colors starting to change on the leaves. Passed through the Thetford Mines area. A series of open pit asbestos mines that closed in the 1980s left gigantic mounds of spoil and tailings that created a somewhat lunar landscape, devoid of vegetation. It was an eerie sight. Continued on to eventually catch the A-73 freeway into Quebec City just before dusk. Found our hotel, the renowned and magnificent Fontenac Castle in the heart of downtown. This huge, stately hotel, perched on the heights overlooking the St Lawrence and the Old Town has a history that goes back to the founding of the city. The guidebook says it is the most photographed hotel in the world and you’ve probably seen pictures of it. It was dark by the time we checked in and got to our rooms. The air had turned colder and a sharp wind gusted through the ramparts as we explored outside. We went to get something light to eat and found the restaurant full so sat in the bar and had leisurely drinks and a meat board and a humus board filled with interesting and tasty items. The glittering and sumptuously appointed hotel is a destination in and of itself and has a museum of exhibits depicting the founding of the city and the history of the hotel in the lower level. We called it a night after planning out our morning for tomorrow.Read more