quebec
Shortly after our failed canoe trip, we went on a trip to Quebec for Keelan's mom's 70th birthday. We stopped in Quebec City on our first night, which is where the majority of my photos came from, then headed to the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region for the majority of it. And finally, Keelan and I headed into Montreal for one night to see friends.
It was as nice of a trip as I could've expected.
I actually am really proud of the photos that I snapped in Quebec City, though! Gallery here, with some of my favourites under the cut. And also minor commentary about the trip, haha.
Although Saguenay is known for its fjords, I was more excited for the wild blueberries – the other thing it is known for. And I pretty much ate all of them before taking photos of them.
We did go to a really lovely microbrewery/pub in Alma and I had an amazing beer! They advertised it as being like a lemonade, and it seriously tasted like lemonade in beer form. It wasn't quite like a typical sour, but it was so refreshing to drink while sitting on their patio! I wish I could get it here, but the microbrewery only sells their beers within Quebec. Alas.
I was actually hoping to take more photos in Montreal, but due to the comedy of errors that was driving from Saguenay to Montreal, we only arrived in the city at like 7 PM... we started driving at 9 AM.
We took the longer way back, along the St Lawrence River and through the Charlevoix region, which was amazingly scenic. I wish I took pictures from the car! We wanted to visit various places in Charlevoix, since they are known for their food, but when we stopped by a mushroom farm, we discovered that somehow, it would take us 5 more hours to get to Montreal. The drive time from Saguenay to Montreal through Charlevoix was supposed to be 5h total, and we'd already been on the road for 2! So we nixed all of the planned stops and started driving – it would put us into Montreal for around 5PM, but that would still give us time.
As we drove closer and closer to Montreal, the time estimate... didn't go down. We also ran into the following problems (to arriving on time for dinner with friends):
- people slowing down along a lovely beachy area (which is somewhere I'd wanted to stop, when I thought we had time to do so!)
- following a slow-moving dump truck along twisty hilly roads
- the worst highway design I have ever seen – two highways fed into a small town's red light
- red lights every 100 metres (well, that's what it felt like) along the highway, with no discernible reason as to why they would be so frequent
- seeing a tow truck and ambulance (lights on) pass us – stuck in traffic – along the shoulder
- finding street parking on Montreal streets when half of them were closed (for pedestrian traffic, which I agree with and like, but it made navigating one-way streets much more difficult)
So... we eventually got there, haha. And we eventually checked into our hotel and had a good night's sleep. And then the next day, I got to walk on Mont Royal, which I'd never done before, even though I've been to Montreal a few times! We even got croissants for breakfast and ate them in the park.
