Rural Québec
So we were back on the long straight roads that the French Canadians seem to love so much. We were heading to an area called Laurentides, recommended by the guide books, which was pretty much following the tourist trail but it seemed like a good route.
We arrived at the town of Magog earlier than we expected. It's quite a small town, but with a nice lake (with the great name of Lac Memphrémagog) and a railway (I think they considered this a tourist attraction). But before we could savour these delights, we needed to find a room. Again this proved harder than we thought it would. We'd made a shortlist of the places in the guides and drove slowly around town trying to find them. It's probably good no police were tailing us, as I'm sure the slow multiple drive-bys looked dodgy, but they paid off. On the third passing (we weren't lost, exactly) of one places we had our eyes on, the notice had dropped the "no" from their "no vacancy" sign. It turned out to be another place run by non-English-speaking long-lost-relative types. They were amazed - they'd just had a cancellation, and as if by magic, we turned up. They really seemed to take a shine to Esther. Maybe she reminded them of a rarely-seen granddaughter. We dumped our luggage in what turned out to be the cheapest room we'd had all trip (and the chintsiest) and set off to look for the gastronomic delights of the town.
Admittedly we didn't look too hard, but the closest we got to gastronomic heaven was a 'micro pub' that seemed to have a pretty good vibe, and it was next to both the lake, and the railway; two attractions in one go couldn't be bad. The pub wasn't exactly a microbrewery, but it sold quite a lot of beers from specialist breweries, including a very passable wheat beer. It probably wasn't the best matched drink to go with our somewhat unusual meal of cheese fondue, but it hit the spot just right.
Magog wasn't exactly a bad town, but just a bit on the dull side, so the next morning we continued our drive around the countryside and fortunately the roads began to twist and turn like good roads should. We actually ended up going through Montréal again, but on motorways, on our way to the ski areas north of the city at Mont Tremblant.
Mont Tremblant is a fairly major ski area, and surprisingly close to the city. It took us maybe an hour to get there on good roads that slowly climbed up into the mountains.
As we entered the area, we stopped at an information centre that we thought might be able to help us find accommodation. They were very helpful, pointing out that the rooms in the centre of the ski village were very expensive and anyway taken, and helped us book something in a place in a nearby town instead. We'll take it.
It's not that the room was bad as such, but it was depressing. This was one of those motels in one of those towns that looked very American, all laid out on a low-rise grid, with all commerce arranged around parking lots containing places like Subway and Dunkin' Donuts. There was a main road where we ate, but it was overpriced and the restaurant without any atmosphere. It was all very functional, and I'm sure that in winter if you really just wanted to ski without a social life it would do. But we weren't skiing, and we weren't staying.
The next morning as we drove further into the mountains, it got prettier and we reached the town of Mont Tremblant. Actually, it's a bit of a confusing area, as there are three distinct areas that make us Mont Tremblant. The main bit is the ski resort proper, with ski lifts, designer ski-wear shops, restaurants and expensive apartments ("apartments by Hilton" - that sort of thing). We decided to try what I guess was the original village - a small place by a lake with a few guest houses, a couple of restaurants and a post office. Almost as soon as we entered the town, we struck lucky and found a nice place for very little money. It was basic but modern and clean. Downstairs looked like a restaurant but the owner was trying to sell the place and really didn't seem to want to run it as anything more than a B (i.e. a B&B without the breakfast) and a coffee meeting place for her friends. Still, it suited us fine.
We went up to the Village (the capitalisation seemed to be used to denote the ski base) to continue our tour of out-of-season resorts. Well, for a ski resort in summer, this place was mighty busy. The car parks were rammed, there were queues for the chair lifts and all businesses were ringing the cash registers as people handed over their tourist-dollars. We started queuing for tickets to some of the attractions - the scenic cable car, the luge (wheeled variety due to the lack of ice in 30°C+ temperatures) and so on. Eventually we decided this was just too much and set about having a bit of après ski without the skiing. The menus were a pleasant surprise - we'd been skiing in the States before, and the food tended to revolve around the burger/hotdog variations. The French influence obviously stretched as far as the cuisine at ski resorts so this was a little more like being in the French Alps.
Next stop was the shops. Normally I'd find little to tempt me into a ski shop in the middle of summer. However, at the beggining of the trek in Mont Megantic, I'd left my only jumper hanging on the back of the door of the toilet at the ticket office. I'd realised this about an hour into the walk and was more than a little miffed to find someone had taken it by the time we finished the walk. Oh, how I cursed Canadians that day. Anyway, I needed something to keep we warm in the Peruvian mountain air, so the sight of shops selling ski apparel was a good thing that day. An hour or so later I was the owner of a new fleece, a pair of gloves, and a woolly hat. Trying on such things is just what you need on a day when you're glad of air-conditioning, but these things must be done.
We spent the afternoon on a relaxing beach by the lake near our guest house, minus the winter clothing, trying to work up the beginnings of a tan. After all, the next evening we were off to Miami, home of the well-toned body. I'm not sure we got that far.
It was only a short trip to the area, but we're glad we did it and might go back some day for a ski trip. It'd be a good place for a ski-and-city break. The next day we headed back to the city, and spent the night a a Montréal airport hotel, dining on the finest delivery pizza before an early night and our 4am alarm to get us on the plane to Miami, last stop before South America.
We arrived at the town of Magog earlier than we expected. It's quite a small town, but with a nice lake (with the great name of Lac Memphrémagog) and a railway (I think they considered this a tourist attraction). But before we could savour these delights, we needed to find a room. Again this proved harder than we thought it would. We'd made a shortlist of the places in the guides and drove slowly around town trying to find them. It's probably good no police were tailing us, as I'm sure the slow multiple drive-bys looked dodgy, but they paid off. On the third passing (we weren't lost, exactly) of one places we had our eyes on, the notice had dropped the "no" from their "no vacancy" sign. It turned out to be another place run by non-English-speaking long-lost-relative types. They were amazed - they'd just had a cancellation, and as if by magic, we turned up. They really seemed to take a shine to Esther. Maybe she reminded them of a rarely-seen granddaughter. We dumped our luggage in what turned out to be the cheapest room we'd had all trip (and the chintsiest) and set off to look for the gastronomic delights of the town.
Admittedly we didn't look too hard, but the closest we got to gastronomic heaven was a 'micro pub' that seemed to have a pretty good vibe, and it was next to both the lake, and the railway; two attractions in one go couldn't be bad. The pub wasn't exactly a microbrewery, but it sold quite a lot of beers from specialist breweries, including a very passable wheat beer. It probably wasn't the best matched drink to go with our somewhat unusual meal of cheese fondue, but it hit the spot just right.
Magog wasn't exactly a bad town, but just a bit on the dull side, so the next morning we continued our drive around the countryside and fortunately the roads began to twist and turn like good roads should. We actually ended up going through Montréal again, but on motorways, on our way to the ski areas north of the city at Mont Tremblant.
Mont Tremblant is a fairly major ski area, and surprisingly close to the city. It took us maybe an hour to get there on good roads that slowly climbed up into the mountains.
As we entered the area, we stopped at an information centre that we thought might be able to help us find accommodation. They were very helpful, pointing out that the rooms in the centre of the ski village were very expensive and anyway taken, and helped us book something in a place in a nearby town instead. We'll take it.
It's not that the room was bad as such, but it was depressing. This was one of those motels in one of those towns that looked very American, all laid out on a low-rise grid, with all commerce arranged around parking lots containing places like Subway and Dunkin' Donuts. There was a main road where we ate, but it was overpriced and the restaurant without any atmosphere. It was all very functional, and I'm sure that in winter if you really just wanted to ski without a social life it would do. But we weren't skiing, and we weren't staying.
The next morning as we drove further into the mountains, it got prettier and we reached the town of Mont Tremblant. Actually, it's a bit of a confusing area, as there are three distinct areas that make us Mont Tremblant. The main bit is the ski resort proper, with ski lifts, designer ski-wear shops, restaurants and expensive apartments ("apartments by Hilton" - that sort of thing). We decided to try what I guess was the original village - a small place by a lake with a few guest houses, a couple of restaurants and a post office. Almost as soon as we entered the town, we struck lucky and found a nice place for very little money. It was basic but modern and clean. Downstairs looked like a restaurant but the owner was trying to sell the place and really didn't seem to want to run it as anything more than a B (i.e. a B&B without the breakfast) and a coffee meeting place for her friends. Still, it suited us fine.
We went up to the Village (the capitalisation seemed to be used to denote the ski base) to continue our tour of out-of-season resorts. Well, for a ski resort in summer, this place was mighty busy. The car parks were rammed, there were queues for the chair lifts and all businesses were ringing the cash registers as people handed over their tourist-dollars. We started queuing for tickets to some of the attractions - the scenic cable car, the luge (wheeled variety due to the lack of ice in 30°C+ temperatures) and so on. Eventually we decided this was just too much and set about having a bit of après ski without the skiing. The menus were a pleasant surprise - we'd been skiing in the States before, and the food tended to revolve around the burger/hotdog variations. The French influence obviously stretched as far as the cuisine at ski resorts so this was a little more like being in the French Alps. Next stop was the shops. Normally I'd find little to tempt me into a ski shop in the middle of summer. However, at the beggining of the trek in Mont Megantic, I'd left my only jumper hanging on the back of the door of the toilet at the ticket office. I'd realised this about an hour into the walk and was more than a little miffed to find someone had taken it by the time we finished the walk. Oh, how I cursed Canadians that day. Anyway, I needed something to keep we warm in the Peruvian mountain air, so the sight of shops selling ski apparel was a good thing that day. An hour or so later I was the owner of a new fleece, a pair of gloves, and a woolly hat. Trying on such things is just what you need on a day when you're glad of air-conditioning, but these things must be done.
We spent the afternoon on a relaxing beach by the lake near our guest house, minus the winter clothing, trying to work up the beginnings of a tan. After all, the next evening we were off to Miami, home of the well-toned body. I'm not sure we got that far.
It was only a short trip to the area, but we're glad we did it and might go back some day for a ski trip. It'd be a good place for a ski-and-city break. The next day we headed back to the city, and spent the night a a Montréal airport hotel, dining on the finest delivery pizza before an early night and our 4am alarm to get us on the plane to Miami, last stop before South America.
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