For our first trip post retirement, we chose a short jaunt to Quebec via NY - and coincidentally, my 70th Birthday celebration in a unique (to us) location.
The Northeast (and other parts of the country) have been experiencing some severe weather - heat, rain, humidity - like we haven’t seen in decades. Our encounter with the phenomenon on this trip was torrential rain while heading north on the Thuway, At one point we considered pulling over but pushed through and after about 30 minutes it subsided.
Torrential Downpour - yes it was that bad!
After the tense beginning, we continued north for about 4 hours to Ausable (Aus-Able) chasm New York, “one of the nation’s first organized tourist attractions”. Opened in 1870 - 22 years before the Adirondack Park, the “Grand Canyon of the Adirondacks” is great place to visit, especially if you’re on your way north.
Fed from White Face and other nearby mountain streams - whose waters run east to Lake Champlain or south to New York - the river that formed the chasm flows strong and creates rainbow falls pictured below,
There are several choices for how you spend your time at Ausable, walking the rim, a deeper and more difficult hike, and rafting the river, we chose the rim walk. It takes about two hours start to finish and I think well worth it.
From Ausable we headed north on the Thruway for stopover in Plattsburgh. We chose that location since it was convenient, made the next leg a manageable drive and had lots of choices for hotels and restaurants.
For the next leg of the journey we continued north reaching the border with Canada in about an hour.
After a comical encounter with the Canadian Border patrol about transporting alcohol and tobacco we were on our way to Montreal and the next stop - the Montreal Botanical Garden.
The Garden is easy to get to - right off the highway and with ample parking, and on this particular Monday in July not overly crowded. There’s lots to see with exhibits from China and Japan, insectarium, and much more. The two sections that I really enjoyed were the “First Nations” (a nice way of referring to the indigenous peoples) Garden and exhibit, and the flower garden around the ponds just east.
From Montreal, it was about three hours north to Quebec City, and our hotel in the old city. We had researched where we wanted to go, what we wanted to see and where to stay in walking distance since our research also told us the streets are narrow and not suited for larger vehicles so we’d want to do most of our travels by foot.
Arriving at the Hotel Le Priori, unloaded the luggage and then carefully maneuvered the suburban to the designated parking garage a few blocks away, wrestled it up the ramps and turns and shoe horned it into a parking space where we gladly left it for the remainder of the stay.
The weather mentioned earlier was still with us so we had to time our exploring to the forecast and for the most part it worked out. For our first afternoon and evening we strolled the nearby streets and located a restaurant for dinner - Le Bistro Pape-Georges - a fun little cafe where had the mandatory serving of Poutine - a particularly Canadian version of fries, gravy and cheese - along with other interesting fare from the menu.
The next day we headed out early to tackle the 10 must see locations locations around Quebec. The old city is hilly so the walk was pretty strenuous but all in all we did well. First stop was the Hotel Frontenac, one of the more famous landmarks.
The history of Quebec City, its location on the St. Lawrence, and the battle history was fascinating. One of the longer walks was up to “The Plains of Abraham” and it defensive position high above the river and role in the battles between the French and British.
From there we continued on the tour and we can see many of the sights in the accompanying gallery. Worth noting that even if you don’t get to all ten “must sees”, some of the smaller venues along the path are well worth it like the
Chalmers-Wesley pictured below.
After a full day of walking, we were ready to rest up and head to dinner where we had reserved a table at Matto - right across the street from the hotel - for my 70th Birthday celebration!
The next morning we once again maneuvered the Suburban back the hotel, loaded the luggage, bid farewell to Quebec city, and drove the 9 hours straight home.
As always, your comments are welcome and if you have any questions be sure to email me.