For an album of photos associated with this post, follow this link to my Shutterfly album. Photos
Special thanks to our friend Susan Sams Baggott of
Customized Travel and Tours for putting together a great rail adventure for us.
See her web site and information at this link http://www.customizedtravelandtours.com/
Our trip commenced on
August 25th with a ride to Union Station by Steve Bamberger to catch
the Metroliner AMTRAK train to New York City—Thanks Steve! We eventually found
where we needed to be in the station and got a Red Cap to hold our bags while
we went in search of breakfast. We settled on Le Pain Quotidian which turned
out to be an excellent choice with all organic fresh food, good service and
access to all their house brand jams, jellies and preserves for our meal. After
our excellent breakfast we headed back to the Red Cap station and as we
expected were pre-boarded by the gentleman well before the general herd got on
the train. We left on time at 12:10 p.m.
and made a number of stops along the way, but arrived on time in New York City
around 4 p.m. Once out of the Penn Station depot, we caught a cab to our hotel,
which was well located with walkable access to Times Square, Rockefeller Plaza
and the Radio City Music Hall. Check in was easy, the room was nice, and we
decided to get out on the streets of New York as quickly as we could to take
advantage of the short time we had in the city.
We walked to Times Square and it was the usual crowd of tourists and
hucksters promoting everything from the performances at the theaters to selling
all kinds of merchandise. We went around
to some side streets to get off the congested areas looking for Rockefeller
Plaza and never really did find it, although there was a lot of construction
around that area and it may have been blocked off. We went back to the hotel,
stopping at a Starbucks along the way for some revitalization. Suzy changed
into her walking shoes and we inquired of the concierge about the best place to
get a corned beef sandwich. He surprised us by saying there weren’t any good
places easy walking distance, but if we wanted to try the subway we could
easily get to Katz’s delicatessen, which we had both heard of. We made our way to the subway and figured out
how to get there easily enough. Katz’s
was a hoppin’ place with lots of locals and tourists ordering up huge
sandwiches to eat in or to go. We split
one along with an order of fries and drinks and it was more than a meal. We
headed back to take the subway to our hotel area, but construction made us take
an alternate route which put us back in Times Square, which was way too crowded
by this time. We got back to the hotel
by about 9:30 and headed to bed early as it was an early morning wake up to get
to Grand Central Station by 6:30 a.m. for our train to Montreal. My Garmin
fitness watch said I did 14, 431 steps that day, which is way more than the
5000-7000 I normally do.
We
were up at 5:15 a.m. and were ready to roll by 6. We cabbed over to Grand Central and processed
for entry to Canada. All the Canada bound passengers boarded first and since we
had asked one of the train people about the best side to sit on to see the
Hudson River valley scenery, we picked a left side seat with a good view
through the window, stowed our bags and settled in for the 11-hour ride. We got
coffee and breakfast snacks from the café car and watched the scenery roll by.
The Hudson valley was very pretty, with lots of history associated with it. There
were 3 National Park Rangers in the café car and they took turns giving talks
about various aspects of the area, to include Revolutionary War and War of 1812
history. They were knowledgeable and enthusiastic, but as retired teachers and
professors they were almost trying to one-up each other on facts and what was
going on historically as we rolled along. We passed by West Point and Suzy
remembered when she was a small girl living there as her father was stationed
there in the early to mid-1950’s. After having enough of the competing
professors, we returned to our car and found our seats had been taken by a lady
who had got on at one of the NY stops along the way and claimed the seat,
although my phone was plugged in at that seat.
She was adamant about her “right” to sit there, so we split up and took
a couple of vacant seats elsewhere, but complained to the conductor who got us
seats together on the right side of the car when we had a crew change stop just
before the scenery shifted to Lake Champlain on the right side of another car. By
now the stops were in northern New York small towns surrounded by woods and
corn silage fields to support the many dairy farms along the way. We passed by
Fort Ticonderoga and some lakeside towns with old mountains in the background. We
stopped at a border town and had our passports checked again by Canadian Border
Control personnel and once into Quebec we again saw cities and towns along with
flatter terrain and large farms. We arrived in Montreal in the middle of heavy
rain, and after a false start on leaving the station from the wrong door, we
got reoriented and made our way through a hotel lobby to a cab stand and got to
our destination. We got settled in and I contacted my cousin Peggy Jalink who
was in Montreal from Japan to get her youngest child settled as a freshman at McGill
University. It was “move-in” weekend
there so the area was busy with fresh-faced college kids and some parents
trying to get them settled in before the term started on Monday. We had to make contact by e-mail as my phone
was not set up for international calling, but were able to message back and
forth and found we were just a 5-block walk away from her hotel. Her daughter, Alina, had already gotten into
her dorm and was doing orientation and fellowship things with her new
classmates, so we did not see her. We walked to Peggy’s hotel, met her and went
back down the street to an open air dining area that featured some good
seafood. It had stopped raining late in
the afternoon and was dry for the evening, so we enjoyed being outside and had
a nice time of dinner and conversation. Suzy and I would normally see Peggy in
Montana during our mutual summer visits, but now that her mother has died, we
missed seeing her this summer in Montana, but managed a nice visit in Montreal!
Peggy treated us to dinner, which was very nice of her, and we walked her back
to her hotel, then walked back to our hotel and called it an evening.
Monday
August 27 dawned a nice day. We were up at 7 a.m. in order to be out on the
streets to catch our bus tour at 8:30. We found the right place to catch the
bus, but were told that we had to actually go to the office in the building
next door as construction made for a different pick-up point. Heavy traffic delayed our start, but we got a
full tour of the city with a very good driver and local guide. We had several
stops along the way, the first being at a Plaza across from the Basilica of
Notre Dame of Montreal. We did not have
time to go inside on this stop, but mentally made a note to come back and see
it. We toured the former site of the Expo and Olympics; saw the old city and
the old and new harbor areas. We noted the strong current in the St. Lawrence
River near the islands, and then headed back into town for a tour of Mount
Royale and a stop at another cathedral in the area, but again, we did not have
time to see the inside. We went back to our hotel after the tour and did a map
reconnaissance of the Chinatown district which was a bit of a walk but no
problem for us. We had our sights set on
Dim Sum and located the place our guidebook said had a good spread of it. We had a substantial lunch of various Chinese
delicacies and ate until we were stuffed. In order to walk off our meal, we
walked to the basilica and toured the inside of it on our own and also with a
local guide from the basilica who did an English speaking tour. It was very
impressive, but we still had some touring time left in the day, so we decided
to take the subway out to the botanical gardens. Although it was already 3:30 p.m., we had
enough time to go in and see what was available, which was substantially less
than normal as the season for the plants was on the downside. Also, the gardens
were fitting displays out for their wintertime festivals which feature lighted
displays. We made our way back to our hotel and took a little rest around 6:15
p.m. We had eaten well and late at lunch so were in no hurry for dinner, but
found that right around our hotel things were pretty booked up for dinner. We decided to go out on our own and see what we
could find, and after several false starts, we ended up at a great place for dinner
that was busy with local college students.
They featured lots of things, including a full deli with their version
of the national dish of Quebec called “Poutine”. I am not sure what that is French
for, but would guess that it stands for “heart attack in a bowl”, as it is
definitely not conducive to our low-carb lifestyle. Their version starts with a
bowl of French fries and cheese curds smothered in brown gravy, topped off with
a massive helping of chopped smoked brisket.
It was so good and so bad for our diet! We walked it off a bit around
the area and got back into our room in time to go to bed and get ready for our
last ½ day in Montreal. Before retiring for the evening I checked my Garmin and
wow! 24,329 steps! That is a lot of walking.
Tuesday
morning, August 28, we were up and out for breakfast at a small patisserie near
our hotel. It had been rated high in the
guidebook, but was not really what we were looking for. We enjoyed some baked treats
and coffee and went on about our touring.
We had seen the signs for a Barbie Exposition in one of the enclosed
malls nearby so we found it and hunted down the display. It was worth the
effort as there were hundreds of dolls in various displays of famous fashion
houses. It featured a runway fashion show with moving models and flash bulbs
going off in the audience, movie characters, ethnic people groups, and much
more set up in displays and dioramas. It
was free to view, but was supporting Make a Wish Foundation with donations, so
we donated. We had some extra time, so we walked around to another Basilica/Cathedral;
this one was Mary Queen of the World. It was not as fancy as the one we visited
the day before, but actually was more functional. While we were there, an
organist was practicing which was impressive. By this time we needed to make
haste back to our hotel and finish our pack up.
The train station was fairly close by so we walked it, but it was a very
warm and muggy day so we were happy not to have to roll our stuff too far. We were able to check our bags for this train
(Canadian VIA Rail) and we had reserved seats so we were not too stressed about
boarding right away. We had time for
coffee in the station and our way leisurely to our car. Our train was a bit
delayed in arriving, but we got on in good order and relaxed as the seats were
elevated and very comfortable with lots of legroom. We had our “snack bag” along and dipped into
it until we were underway. Instead of a
snack car, they bring a cart around and have food and beverages much like an
airplane does. We had 4 o’clock tea and cookies and before too long we arrived
in Quebec City. We detrained and recovered our bags and lined up for taxis
which were very slow in getting around picking all of us arrivals up. However, we eventually did get a cab and made
out way to our boutique hotel, very close to the impressive edifice of the
Chateau Fountenbleu, the Canadian Pacific Flagship Hotel of the late 19th
century. Our hotel was small, but we had a nice room and there was 24/7 coffee
and tea service in the lobby. We dropped our bags and asked the desk clerk to
assist us in reconfirming our Canada Air flights from Quebec City through
Toronto to Boston in the coming days. Canada
Air has a policy of reconfirming 72 hours in advance or you lose your
reservation and since we did not have working phones in Canada we needed local
assistance, which was cheerfully done. Since we were downstairs, we decided to
explore around our hotel and discovered the boardwalk overlooking the St.
Lawrence River (called the Promenade) that has many nice views across the river
as well as impressive views of the Chateau. We walked past an Anglican Church
of Canada cathedral that had a small bazaar on the grounds with people selling
local arts and crafts. Our guidebook had recommended a fancy burger place and
since we were close by, we went to it and had a great meal of gourmet bison
burgers, fries made with truffle oil and parmesan cheese with herbs, and no
doubt one of the best chocolate milkshakes I have ever had. We walked back to
our hotel via the Promenade and up a hill to our room, cleaned up for the
evening and unpacked for the stay there. Our itinerary for the next day
included a city bus tour, but included a lot of free time to tour on our own so
we perused our guidebook closely to see what we wanted to visit on our own
time. Our room included breakfast in the
lobby, so we did not have to worry about finding a place to eat in the morning.
Step count was down a bit as we were in the train for a good part of the
day—only 12,000 steps!
Wednesday,
Aug 29 saw us up around 7 a.m. and facing a rainy morning. The hotel breakfast was good and after
getting ready for the day, we had some extra time before our bus tour at 10:30
a.m. All the tours left from an area across from the Chateau, which was handy
for us. The bus tour was again well worth our time and expense as we got a
thorough orientation of where things were in relation to our lodgings. However
by the time our tour ended, the rain was fairly heavy, so we ducked into the
Starbucks in the Chateau and had hot drinks and a pastry hoping it would let
up. When it did not, we buckled our
chinstraps and headed out to walk up to the Citadel, the fortified garrison
that defended the city, but was never directly attacked, so has remained
intact. It is home of the only French
speaking Regiment in the Canadian Army, the 22d Infantry, known as the “Venn
Deux’s” (French for 22). The rain let up
once we got in the walls so we were able to do the guided tour, visit the
regimental museum and stay for the Retreat drill and ceremony at 4 p.m. A
ceremonial unit and the regimental band put on a good show with martial music
and some snappy drill and ceremony by the troops. Just as they left the parade
grounds after the ceremony, the rain came again so we walked back to our hotel
and had hot tea and a snack there. We
let our jackets dry out and looked up some places for dinner. We went out about
7 p.m. for dinner at a place called “Parmesan” featuring good Italian dishes.
The patrons were all into the accordion player strolling the dining room,
playing and singing French Canadian and Italian songs. It was a rollicking good
time and we enjoyed the whole evening, especially their dessert of ice cream
and fresh fruit and berries. The décor
in the place was over the top with every square inch of shelf and flat space
containing ceramic booze bottles made to commemorate special events or famous
people—like the old Jim Beam bottles, of which there were many. We walked back
to the hotel and since they had a big soaking tub, I took my first hot bath in
many years. Our bathtub at home is too small and too hard for me to get in and
out of. The bath helped ease some of my
aches and pains accumulated over the week. The step count again was fairly low,
only 12,000+, but I felt all of them!
Thursday,
August 30th saw me up at 7:30 to fetch coffee from the lobby for us
in the room, as the room did not have room coffee like the bigger hotels
do. It is my job to see to it we have
morning coffee, which is pretty easy most places, but here I had to dress and
go downstairs, make two cups and return without spilling anything. Suzy took some extra zzz’s so we were a
little slow getting ready for breakfast, but eventually got down to the
breakfast area and after tidying up we headed out for the day of touring on our
own. We went first to the city
information center which was close by where we signed up for a boat tour of the
local river area. From there we walked down flights of steep stairs to the
lower town area, which is the older part of the city by the river. We looked at
all the little shops and meandered about until it was time to head for the pier
and board the boat. It was nice enough to find seats on an outside deck where
we could hear a man in period costume of the 1660’s tell us the history of the
area and the sights we were seeing in English, then in French. There were many
good views and much to see from river islands to shipyards to grain and goods
terminals that looked very busy. The
shipyard was refitting several Scandinavian vessels that had been purchased to
be made into ice breakers for the Canadian Coast Guard. Upon returning to the dock we decided to visit
the Museum of Modern Civilization which was a short walk away. The museum does
a very good job of giving the history of Quebec and has some other interesting
exhibits, but still seemed to be a great space looking to find itself in terms
of what is there to see. After the
museum we went back to the narrow streets of lower town, now packed with
tourists. We made our way to the
funicular to ride up to upper town rather than walk back up the stairs. Although
it is a short ride, it has a nice view. We walked back to the hotel, looking at
places for dinner along the way and once back to the hotel had tea in the lobby
and relaxed a bit. We settled on dinner at a Cape Breton style crepere’ and had
a main course crepe each and then split a dessert one. After dinner we walked back to the Promenade
and watched the light change as the sun went down, reflecting off some
clouds. We eventually made our way back
to our hotel and washed the days dust off, then settled in to figure out what
we would do with our morning the next day as we had to be ready to head to the
airport by noon for our flight to Boston via Toronto.
Friday,
August 31 saw us up at 7:30 with a sunny day with cool temperatures in the low
50’s to remind us we were in a northern climate. We got ready for the day, packing up to leave
and had breakfast, then headed out to see the Notre-Dame cathedral and also
visit the small museum of St. Francois Lavall, a 17th century priest
who planted Catholic Churches throughout the country, later becoming a bishop,
an archbishop just a few years ago elevated to sainthood. We walked to one of the old city gates and
climbed the stairs up to the city wall to view different parts of the city. We
spent some time looking into the old city foundry that was a munitions plant
all the way through WWII, but is now a museum dedicated to the historical
development of the city and its defenses and fortifications, to include a full
scale model of the original walled city. Soon enough it was time to get
ourselves back to the hotel and get a cab to the airport. We bade our little hotel farewell and cabbed
for quite a ways to the more modern part of the city outskirts and the airport.
We had no problem with our kiosk check in and bag drop at Canada Air, so we
took time for soup and a sandwich at Tim Hortons before going through
security. Security was very slow; with
only one line and some pre-checking of documents that really was a bottleneck.
We had time to get though it and still had some wait time before boarding. Our flight to Toronto was uneventful and we
thought we had plenty of time to make our connection to Boston, but the airport
is so large that for international passengers it is quite a hike to get to
where you need to go and then there is processing to do, to include another
X-ray bag inspection and electronic immigration entry with face recognition
software and a computer reading of one’s passport. The bottom line is that although we had been
given an hour to layover, we needed to move quickly with no distractions to
make it for boarding of the flight to Boston. Once on board, it was another
uneventful flight to Boston and since we arrived about 8 p.m.; Suzy suggested I
check with our hotel to see if they had an airport shuttle. It turns out the
city has several bus shuttles that service different parts of the city. The
hotel told us which one to take and we did.
We rode along with a young man who had just returned from visiting his
girlfriend in France and worked at one of the hotels close to ours. He gave us some good insights into what to do
and see and was quite a nice young man.
We were dropped off across the street from our hotel, The
Fairmont-Copley, a grand old hotel right near the square with Trinity Church
and across the corner from the grand Boston public library. It was a little
after 9 p.m. by the time we got checked in and found our large and
well-appointed room. Not having had dinner we decided to eat in the hotel restaurant,
which was still full to the gills with people out for an evening. The young man
on the bus had given us a heads up that it was move-in weekend for the 30 some
colleges and universities in the Boston area and places would be crowded with
new students and parents. The hotel
restaurant was a fancy dining place and even though we got seated quickly, it
took forever to get an order in and get served, making for a very late dinner,
although the seafood we had was quite good.
We headed back to our room and made a beeline for the bed as we were
quite tired by then.
Friday,
Sep 1 was our one full day in Boston and we were determined to make the most of
it. We got going early to catch our pre-paid “Hop On - Hop Off” Trolley Bus
Tour of the city and were picked up on the square across from our hotel. We
were not on for long with our first driver, but he was very interesting and
gave the few of us early morning riders a good tour. We stopped at the main station to get our
voucher changed over to a ticket and also to get the discount they had for the
Harbor Tour we wanted to do later in the day.
We ended up having coffee and a pastry at the local Starbucks kiosk,
then heading to the dock and taking the mid-morning Harbor Tour so we would not
miss out later. We got good seats on the
stern outside and had great city views with warm weather and sunshine to
boot. The tour was great, really a must
do if your time is short in Boston. You go by the U.S.S. Constitution (Old
Ironsides) and many other historical and interesting sights. One thing that stood out throughout our time
in town is how much new construction and development is going on. After the tour, we hit the Freedom Trail and
walked quite a bit to get to see The Old North Church and Paul Revere’s house. Our ticket for the tour got us discounts at
both places. At the church, we had a
short narration from a docent about the history of the church and the lighting
of the lanterns to warn the minutemen of the British advance. There are many
historical plaques on the wall and the church still has the old style box pews,
although pew rental is a thing of the past! The window the lantern flasher escaped
through is still extant and memorialized.
They make it clear that the Longfellow poem about Paul Revere takes a
lot of artistic license about that evening and night. Revere’s ride was
somewhat different than our childhood learning of the event, but still it truly
was high adventure for all involved with a lot of risk. The church grounds
include a small museum and a working exhibition of chocolate making the way it
was done in colonial times, with a woman in period costume doing it and
explaining the process. She had some
samples of the brewed hot chocolate to taste and it was not bad, but nothing
like we think of as creamy hot chocolate.
We continued on the Freedom Trail (follow the red bricks in the
sidewalk) to Paul Revere’s house which was of course quite small with period
furniture, but nothing actually of the families as many people and lived there
over the years. There is also an attached museum which does have some of his
silver work on display. Paul was quite the entrepreneur, building up many
businesses, to include a foundry that was later operated by one of his sons. By
this time it was getting to be lunchtime and we wanted to have some Italian
food, in the North-end district, so we headed that way on foot and ended up in an
Italian restraint that featured seafood. Suzy had lobster bisque and I had clam
chowder, then we both had lobster rolls and fries. After lunch we walked back
to a Hop On-Hop Off pick up point and rode another trolley around the circuit.
Our driver was a music fan so had snippets of songs to augment his talks. He decided to go off route just a bit to take
us by Fenway Park as the Red Sox were on the road and Pearl Jam was playing a
concert there on Memorial Day (lots of tourists about with Pearl Jam T-Shirts).
As we were on the way, he played “Sweet Caroline”, the Red Sox traditional 8th
inning song by Neil Diamond and we all sang along—it was a pretty jolly group!
We went down a street that had a lot of college frat houses and the kids were
all out in the front stoops and sidewalks grilling and having lots of “liquid
refreshment”, so we got lots of waves to and from our trolley. Once back to our
original start point, we bailed off the tour and headed to our room to freshen
up and take a rest. We had decided on Legal Sea Foods (founded in the Boston
area) for dinner, and although we had some directions and our Google Maps phone
app, it was hard to find as it was in an indoor mall and the map program did
not know what to make of that. I had
made reservations using the “Open Table” app on my phone that morning and we
were running a bit behind our time to be at the restaurant, but once we found
the place we had no wait to be seated even though it was crowded. We had a great meal once again, keeping to a
seafood theme for the whole time we were in Boston for all our meals with the
exception of breakfasts. We were “toured out” after dinner so we returned to
our hotel, repacked for the train trip home the next day, and got some good
sleep in a very comfortable bed.
Saturday,
Sep 2, I was up early and made room coffee, but Suzy slept in as she was
getting worn out and would be heading out for another trip to Atlanta for a
CareNet conference the Tuesday after we got home. We did eventually get moving and walked to a
local downtown Panera’s and had breakfast outside on the sidewalk café part,
which was a bit brisk as it was cloudy and only in the high 40’s. After
breakfast and returning to our room, we finished packing up and since we had
time, went out to see the public library across the street. One of our trolley drivers told us about the
structure, that it looks like a big concrete office edifice, but is in realty a
building surrounding a large open air courtyard which is very pretty. We poked around the library until it was time
to head back and get over to the train station.
We checked out of our hotel and caught an Uber ride to the South Boston Amtrak
station, lined up a Red Cap and chilled out until it was time to board for the
9-hour train ride back to Washington DC. We had business class going home which
gave us a reserved waiting area and pre-boarding with the Red Cap service
handling the bags and stowing them in our car.
The seats were comfortable with lots of leg room and plug-ins for our
electronics at our seats. The café car
was a bit of a hike on this train as we were in the back and it was towards the
front, but we managed to get some food when we needed it. The first half of the trip was new scenery
for us as we were running along the coast through Massachusetts, Rhode Island
and Connecticut with lots of water views and a different approach to New York
City than we had coming up. Once past
New York City, the remainder of the trip passed through cities and towns we had
seen before on our way up, including Trenton, Philadelphia, Wilmington, and
Baltimore. We were on time getting in (around 9:30 p.m.), but it was well after
dark and chilly so we had to dig our jackets out of our bags and stand by the
pick-up point for cabs and Uber/Lyft operators.
I ordered up an Uber, but it took a while to get picked up as it was a
busy place and a holiday weekend, but we eventually got taken home--pricey! We
found all to be in order there and were warmly greeted by our pups who had been
well cared for by our pet/house sitters Ashley and Colin Ochocki while we were
away. It was midnight before we got
settled in and to bed, but we had the Labor Day holiday the next day to rest
up. All in all it was an enjoyable trip.
Susan Baggot did a great job putting the trip together and arranging for all
the hotels, transportation and bus tours.
