Ride into the city without getting too lost this time. About six miles shorter and two hours less time.
Northern Montreal is interesting with a University area, a Jewish area (stopped to buy more bagels at a different shop), many parks with nice lakes.
Lavall, the city above and a bit West appears to be mostly residential.
Inquired several times about using the Metro and or train with the bikes. Got different stories each time. Signage is inconsistant.
Lunch again at the IGA Extral in Laval. Good value ..
No pictures on this blackberry, too late and too clean (hot tub, very hot, after dinner).
Speaking of dinner. We went to Communsal. A vegatarian - four types of vegatarian styles - buffet where payment is by weight. Downtown location, a great location, and very very reasonably priced.
This restaurant would be a real winner in Palo Alto.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Rain mud soft roads. A very wet ride over soggy dirt paths. Should have been less but turned out to be 50 miles.
Many lovely streams and rapics. Pictures on the other devices, which naturally cannot connect. Good old reliable blackbery!
Small towns in this area look like Tirollian villages.
Wanted to go to a particular atisian bakery in Val-David. Nope, closed on Mondays.
Picture is of a regional speciality, Sugar Pie. Tastes much like the name. QB at just a couple of bits.
Stopped on the road to buy rubber dishwashing gloves. Between the rain and grit from the road needed a respite.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
Ah, the joys of maps or map reading. One or the other caused us, with
Sharon wiped out, to do over 50 miles including some long grades that had to
be descended again.
Nice B&B but not where it was marked on the map; we both looked. Went about
7km past it (uphill) and then had to retrace our steps. Jacques, the
propriatare saw that QB was tired and when I asked about a place for dinner
he served a rice and poulet dinner, with wine, beer and cake. Local maple
syrup was poured over the cake. Quite good. May serve cake this way some
time in the future.
Second maple syrup of the day as it was liberally poured over our french
toast at breakfast. Lunch was also quite good with a poulet sandwich on
very dark bread at a local eatery in Mont Tremblont.
As to eating well, the insects ate very well today: very well indeed. Some
special 3M Ultra.... insect stuff (from my Vietnam trip and the travel
advisory group) helped. The supposedly soothing bug bite stuff was most a
bust.
When we checked out of the hotel in Nominingue we could not find anyone to
check us out. Same circumstance when we arrived, The had our credit card
from reservation time. Had dinner, breakfast, room. Never met anyone
except the masseuse who claimed to be family.
Ride was half on asphalt and half on crushed rock and hard dirt. No rain
so it worked find.
No pics today as they are on the Android and right not it is not working:
just the eee seems to be able to hold a connection. Will send pics later.
In a small, very small, resort town on a lovely lake in a peculiar hotel
called Villa Bellerive http://www.villabellerive.com/
The local dialect is not discernible. Sharon's good ear and my loud voice
are not sufficient to break through the barrier. They understand me (which
is incredible) but neither of us can follow the dialect. In many ways they
speak espressively like Italians with lots of body language and happy to
hear their own voices. Act as if we have an idea of what they are saying.
Very very nice to us but hardly understandable.
The route information on the placards along the route are very easy to
read. No dialect involved, as expected.
Went into the bar and ordered a been on draft and a coffee. Barkeep went
through 8 glasses looking for water spots on each one and finally got
annoyed and washed a glass for my beer. She then handed the coffee pot
(standard Bunn coffee machine) to Sharon to smell to see if the coffee was
too old; it was so she made a new pot.
The pictures contain the past couple of days - catching up.
-Vers these are worms for the fishing crowd. Sold outside the
supermarket IGA
-two pics of regional specialty carbs. A sugar cream pie in two
variations. Maybe some version of a shoe fly pie
-water tower in downtown Montreal, by the place we went for air and then
were told that the machine was broken.
-some pics on the trail from Mont-Laurier to Nominingue. Lunch being a very
special affair as pictured.
-The nice Canadians we discussed the health care system with
-shuttle bus to Mont-Laurier
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Ah the joys of networks and browsers.
eeePC nicely connected as evidenced by this note. Same connection on my
Android does not work. The ISP managing the network does recognize the
google browser, so password cannot be transmitted.
Pictures, todays, stuck as USB connection does not mount either.
Very early rising to get to the shuttle bus (pictures of same to follow).
Interesting conversation about Canadian health care system and the US
debates. Much of what I was familiar with except three details.
- Rx is not covered. Not as expensive as ours but hardly low cost. Belief
among the passengers is that the is a way for those who cannot afford to pay
to get all the drugs. Must be a way in their mind.
-what if your drug costs increase significantly due to illness I ask. Just
up the service level to get insurance (private) for Rx. No familiarity
with the dreaded "pre-existing condition".
-their debate concerns privatization. Many are opting out of the National
system putting pressure on its base. How much privatization is to be
permitted.
Overall quite pleased except for the delays for items such as MRIs or other
non-life threatening issues. Of course,..... if you know someone then it is
easy to jump the queue; do it all the time.
Not much to Mont-Laurier. Planned to bike this area and then take off on
the morrow using the main trail towards Montreal - about 280 km. Should take
four days of riding.
Dinner is a picnic as even less to Mont-Laurier in ways of eating
establishments. Tea at the Salon de Tee was, well, Sharon does much better.
Nice hot tub and spa area making up for specialized net connections.
No pictures with today's post as I am using the eeePC and the pics are on
the camera and maybe the Andoid. So, just to have a pic added an old one
of me eating noodles at a place Don took me to.
A not too early start with a good stop at an excellent bagel place in the
Fairmont section. Maybe 4 miles or so from the center of the city where we
were staying. Worth the ride. Musuli, sesame, raison-cin etc. Just
chewey enough. No coffee so we went across the street to the Italian coffee
shop. Good brew and expresso.
While eating a chain gang, literally, of small children maybe 4 years old
came marching by. All roped together. Went to take a picture and we told
not to. Apparently it is illegal in Quebec to take pictures of
children - concern about pedifiles.
Tried to get fruit at the local depaneur but .... sorry "pas de fruit"
Just some clearly past their sell date bananas. I passed. At bagels, oh
well.
Asked the locals about school language. French required unless one has both
English parents speaking at home. Do not start English as a second language
until 4th or 5th grade.
Lunch at the IGA chain of supermarkets. Good food at the cafe and the bill
came to only $11.51, with the tax.
Speaking of tax. Taxes appear to be 3% plus 5% plus 7.5% Have not
researched all the taxes.
Decent quality to excellent quality roads. The signage however leaves a lot
to be desired. Today's ride should have been about 37 miles. Ended up
over 47 (QB is not pleased). Maybe some riding in circles or maybe some
poor markings of distance on the map or both.
Early departure tomorrow for the bus to take us to Mont-Laurier from which
we will cycle back over the next several days.
[BSQ. Montreal Walking Day]
Late start on a warm and sunny day. Over to the old city for a stroll and a
boat ride.
Oddities drom the US perspective:
- stamps to US are $.98 fine but then they add two taxes which add up to
12.5% Taxes on a govt. price.
- dairy variations. Not as impressive as Denmark but good. Milk: 1,2,and
3.25 percent as well as skim. Cream for coffee etc. at 5, 10, 15, 35%
similar for yogurts.
Boat ride highlight, largest and oldest wooden roller coaster in Canada
according to guide. QB has picture.
St. Lawrence is a nice long 2000 km channel.
Moules Frites for lunch. Excxellent. From Malbecque.
Ate at a bistro in a main square.
Commasal, a vegitarian restaurant buffet (payby weight) was closed for the
holiday. Next visit we will go.
Arrived without incident; food first.
This portion will be called boogs sack Quebec.
Arrived without incident; food first.
This portion will be called boogs sack Quebec.
Somehow....
