Twenty-plus years of documenting the South's vernacular art, visionary environments and traditions….plus modern art exhibits, Faulkner and Eudora, and This Week's Various. Welcome.
Av and I love to go to Canatara Park in Sarnia, Ontario and sit beside the water, eat our chips (french fries) from “Albert’s Rolling Lunch”, and give the birds a snack. Av gets his chips plain, I love them with vinegar and salt…yum! It’s really comfortable with the cool breeze off the water, and I love feeding the birds.
Room: Every room at this hotel is a suite: there’s a living area with loveseat, chair, eating area, and workdesk with office chair plus a very nice bathroom, a nice bedroom area – and the bed was *so* comfortable, and a separate dressing area. Internet access was free.
Lobby: Very nice lobby with atrium.
Service: Great service – from room service snack to housekeeping.
Food: There isn’t an abundance of choice when it comes to room service, but one option is from the Chinese restaurant there on site. Our meal from there was very good.
Spa: Av had a massage, and said it was good – as was the general spa area.
Extra: The hotel – outside and inside – was lovely. The beds were incredibly comfortable.
Our experience is this: We would 100% stay here again. The better hotels in Toronto proper are quite expensive, and we got much, much more value by staying just a bit outside of town.
These are some pics from the cemeteries on Mont Royal in Montreal:
Let me count the ways.
Until Av and I decided to include Montreal on our trip, I had *no idea* what on earth poutine was, let alone that it existed.
Poutine is a street food. There are three main ingredients:
french fries
cheese curds
gravy
Nutritious, eh?
Well, it is delicious! You take hot french fries, put fresh cheese curds on top (not melted), and hot gravy over that. I know it doesn’t necessarily sound good, but…..it is.
We had heard one could procure the most delicious poutine (poutine is pronounced ‘poo-teen’) at, of all places, the Montreal Pool Hall. This place is also supposed to have some amazing hot dogs too…but we were on a singular search for amazing poutine. We found it. Delicious!!
The pictures in this post are of the poutine from the Montreal Pool Hall.
Room: This was our first time in Montreal – and this hotel, the Marriott Chateau Champlain, made our stay even better. The room was very nice – not fabulous, but nice. I think it’s probably been a few years since the rooms underwent renovation, but everything was in good shape. One of the best parts about the room was the window – we had a lovely view of Montreal. The room never really got cool, but we spent most of our time in the city, anyway….it was never hot, just never got cool enough. Wireless internet is included – no extra cost.
Lobby: Very nice lobby.
Service: All of the service was excellent, except for one time when the valet failed to retrieve our car after we called beforehand – so we were downstairs for thirty minutes and had to request it again. Everyone was very friendly.
Food: I don’t really recommend the room service. We had a late-night snack and it was ‘just okay’.
Extra: The nicest elevators I have ever seen are here! The inside of each elevator is lovely – and there is a digital display of an analog clock showing the current time inside, and a voice (in French) that speaks whenever the elevator stops. Also: there is access from right beneath the hotel to a Metro stop – VERY convenient.
Our experience is this: We would stay here again, provided that we got a good rate, as we did this time (they were having a special, with second night of a two-night stay at 1/2 rate).
Almost.
We were on our way from Freeport, Maine to Montreal, when I saw that if we just drove twenty or thirty miles out of the way, we could climb the highest peak in New England. There’s even a road to the top! So why not!?
Well, we started out to climb Mt. Washington. We paid the entrance fee, read the warnings and vehicle restrictions, put Av’s car in 1st gear – for the whole trip up and back – and with smiles on our faces, started out.
Until we got to about 2/3 of the way up. The van started running a little hot (the instruction sheet said that was normal and to just put the heater on). The road went from paved to dirt/gravel. And I started thinking, “okay, we are thousands of miles from home. There is no Enterprise Rent-A-Car close to here. And what the heck are we doing to our car?”. Being out in the boonies without a way to the rest of my beautiful vacation got me a little freaked out.
So we turned around.
It was still fun! And the views – 2/3rds up, anyway – were beautiful!
More about Mt. Washington…and it really is an interesting place….can be found here.
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