Another Northern Journey

July 28-August 1

Here’s how we got to Montreal and what we’ve done so far.

We went to a gathering of Joanna’s family in northern Vermont. She and I left on Friday the 28th and took our time getting to Springfield, Vt.

We stopped on the way at Brattleboro, which is one of those cute little towns like New Hope, Pa., or the old town in Fredericksburg, Va. It’s full of local boutiques, bars, restaurants, and the Strolling of the Heifers, an annual parade in which residents walk their cows in a parade through town.

It’s part of a food drive that promotes local agriculture and food for the needy. 

There’s also a covered bridge, not a truly rare thing in those parts, but rare enough for us that we stopped to walk across it.

We stopped at Springfield, Vt., for the night because I didn’t want to drive the whole seven- or eight-hour trip in a single stretch.

We shared a New York strip steak at a local restaurant called 56 Main Street. 

We got to our destination the next day, Saturday the 29th, with no trouble and stayed in the huge rambling farmhouse owned by Joanna’s sister Philomena and her husband, Jeff. 

There were eight people staying there: Phil and Jeff, their son Ian, Joanna and I, Joanna’s son Christopher, Joanna’s sister Gladys and her husband Ken.

The house is so big that when you’re in your room, you can’t tell there’s anybody else around. Some years ago, it was an inn.

Seeing that we were out in the country, I was hoping for dark sky because Joanna has never seen the Milky Way. I’ve only seen it a couple of times, years ago from my mother’s back porch in Edmeston, N.Y., at the dark of the moon.

No luck this time. The moon was at half and very bright. I couldn’t see more stars than I can at home. 

Saturday, I helped Jeff lay stones for a wall he is building by his driveway. Joanna joined her sisters working in the front garden,

On Sunday, four of us—Christopher, Jeff, his brother Dave, and I—piled into the pickup to go to the Big Falls. You go out Highway 105 (maybe) and then take a dirt road to a cut-off. You climb over some rocks and come to a stomach-churning gorge where, a hundred or a thousand feet below you, the river cascades through the rocks. 

Waterfalls are always impressive, but this one was in a hemlock and pine forest. Climbing over the rocks, I thought at first that maybe I felt like Chingachgook. 

Then there was a correction. No, I felt like somebody playing Chingachgook. Good enough.

We entered Canada on Monday at a place called Derby Line. I had put my switchblade in the trunk, so when Canadian Customs asked me if I was carrying any weapons, I could say a folding knife in my pocket.

Anything that opens with a spring?

No, sir. (Not in my pocket, anyway.)

We took Autoroute 55 north to Autoroute 10 west, which brought us right into midtown Montreal.

One of the streets that Google Maps told us to take wasn’t there, so we were officially lost for a while.

Making it all more interesting, most of the streets in Midtown are torn up and closed. We were looking for Avenue Viger, which would take us to the Holiday Inn.

We were on Rue St. Antoine almost until it ended. In desperation, I took a left turn onto a street that ran in the opposite direction.

Joanna saw the street sign. “Viger,” she said. Damn, we were back on track.

It wasn’t clear how we could get into the place. Then, as we passed, there seemed to be an entrance around the corner with a few cars in front. But the street, Rue St. Urbain, was one way in the wrong direction. 

I’ve driven in New York, so I know how this works. I circled the block and came up on the hotel. 

You go to the second floor to check in. That’s when you learn that you are supposed to pull into the garage under the hotel.

There was a little bit of running around—bringing the luggage to the room on a cart, getting the cab behind me to move, avoiding the woman who ran behind the car (with a child in tow, mind) as I was backing up—before I parked the car. 

I had hoped the location would be good, but once we were there we saw that it is in an excellent part of Montreal. We are on the edge of Chinatown and a couple of blocks from the Old City.

After we caught our breath at the hotel, we went around the corner to the pedestrian-only street that runs through Chinatown. We stopped at a restaurant and had gai lan, soft-shell crab, and a claypot of beef and dried tofu. 

It was all pretty good. Way too much garlic on the vegetable, and the beef was too sweet. But even so, we managed to put away a lot of it.

I had one Tsingtao, and it wiped me out.

I think I conked out before ten p.m. and didn’t get up till eight or so in the morning.

Tuesday morning we went out for a Chinese breakfast specialty sometimes called congee, but known as cheok in Cantonese. You pronounce that almost like “joke,” but with a diphthong. 

We had two kinds, one with chicken and preserved egg, and the other with seafood, which is my favorite.

Later we strolled up the hill to the Basilica Notre Dame de Montreal. The church is on or near the site of the original parish in Montreal, founded in the 1600s. The building, though, dates to the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

The church is in sight of the hotel, which was designed with the help of a feng shui expert. According to feng shui, it’s bad for the spiritual flow of a building to have its entrance face a temple. That’s why the door is on St. Urbain instead of Avenue Viger.

That may also explain the statue of Kwun Yum, goddess of mercy, and the fishpond in the lobby.

We had sat in the park across the street the last time Joanna and I were in the city, so this time we decided to go inside. 

Churches, no matter whose or where, are always fun to visit. 

The striking thing about this church is the altar wall. It is bathed in pastel light and covered with sculpture. There are allegories of the Eucharist involving Melchizedek, Moses, Abraham and Isaac, and Aaron. A tableau at the top represents Jesus crowning his mother Queen of Heaven.

I’ve tried to catch some of the flavor of it in the picture of the day.

Dinner was at a great French restaurant called La Gargote on Place d’Youville in Old Montreal. We had eaten here the last time we were in Montreal, about five years ago, so we knew it would be good.

The wines are excellent. I had a Cotes de Ventoux, a Rousillon, and a Cotes du Rhone. Joanna had a St. Emilion. 

I ordered the Rousillon because I knew the name was familiar, but couldn’t remember why.

Joanna remembered that we had been there. It is the town full of color which is a source of ocher.

As we often do, we ordered one dish at a time and shared it. 

We started with escargots. There were at least a dozen on the plate, some loose and others in a light pastry shell, in a Bourguignon sauce. 

We followed that with yellowfin tuna that had a dressing of diced tomato and capers. The salt and the sweet with the savory, meaty fish were terrific. So were the charred carrots that came with it.

Half an appetizer and half an entree left us room for dessert. The creme brulee trio was three small cups of custard, one with blueberries, another with traditional vanilla, and a third with basil and Triple Sec. Yeah, I know that last one may sound weird, but they were all dead-on perfect fun.

Be well, everyone, and may you all have fun. And don’t forget to eat your carrots. They may be surprisingly good.

Harry

August 1

How sad to have never seen the Milky Way.

But, hey, cheers, and a big hiya to Joanna!

JackT

August 2

Yes, dear Grasshopper. We did visit a village called Roussillon during your first visit to Provence. But sadly, that is not where your wine came from.

The Roussillon AOC (now called AOP) is close to the Spanish border, a bit west and south of where we were staying.

It is possible we had a Roussillon wine when we had lunch in Arles.

Similar grapes as in the Southern Rhone, but since it is further south, stronger flavors and more rustic. Higher alcohol, too

Larry