Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Saturday, September 29 Quebec to La Malbaie

We wake to the wind shaking the window panes of our 12th floor suite and cloudy skies...looks like it will rain any minute. We have seen enough of Quebec so even though we had planned for a late check out and afternoon car pick up, we go ahead and check out after Carolyn gets a sandwich lunch to go in the bar. While we wait for the porter, we watch the Queen Mary sail by on her way from Montreal to the mouth of the Saint Larwrence.
By the time we get to the car rental place it is raining and cold!

There is no problem getting out of Quebec. We think we will stop at Montgomery Falls for some pictures as the rain has let up. However, there is no option to just pay to park, you have to buy an expensive multi use ticket

so we get back on the highway and head on. The trees have a lot of color, more than we have seen anywhere else. Even though there are showers off and on, we have a pleasant drive. She turn off to see the largest Cathedral in North America that is ringed with tour buses so we drive on again.
At Baie-St Paul we take the highway along the river per the suggestion of our waiter last night and it is beautiful
....too bad the sun isn’t out.

Our plan is to spend two nights at the Fairmont Le Manior Richelieu in La Malbaie.
We arrive about 4PM and check into our river view room. It is one of the newly renovated rooms in this historic100 year old hotel, well every thing except the A/C unit. It isn’t as cool here as it was in Quebec and the room is very stuffy. Carolyn sets the control at 68 degrees, turns on the A/C and gets a blast of very hot air! She calls the front desk and they send maintenance up. The man tells us he is sorry, but the system has been changed from A/C to heat for the season. Heat is all we can get...no fan only...just hot air! He suggests we open the window....except there is a block on the one small window that actually opens so it only opens about a two inch crack. Well, the manager comes and offers us a larger room without the view, but an extra window...no, we want the view...so after much discussion we have a fan and the stopper off the window and the room begins to cool. At this point we are not at all impressed with the Canadian Fairmont Hotel chain especially given the high cost of their rooms. Finally things settle down and as we are enjoying a cocktail in the room, we see the Queen Mary again sailing past us in the building mist!
It turns into a dark and stormy night as we head to dinner. Carolyn has a list of places that people have commented on. We pick a crepe place and have a great cheese fondue with bread, meat and veggies for dippers and a wonderful maple caramel crepe dessert. Great, fun meal, reminds us of some fun fondue parties we did when we were much younger!

We fall asleep to the sounds of the rain and the St Lawrence River.

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