Seniors on the road, the ocean, off the beaten path—and wherever: I think we may have walked to Quebec!...

September 23, 2024

I think we walked to Quebec…

Our flights to YUL (Montreal) were, luckily, uneventful. We had a wonderful FA (flight attendant), John, with a delightful sense of humor. Many jokes on the PA and little things such as when we asked him about our connection in ORD (we were afraid we’d have to go to the International Terminal for our connection to the YUL flight), he checked on his phone and said we’d won the prize for shortest walk to the connection, Gate C3 to C2. Yay.

Enroute, our pilot alertly avoided some thunderstorms that I got pictures of, first time I’ve ever seen the huge buildups. Being married to a pilot is so very enlightening, he said, “It’s so much better when a storm like that is not AHEAD of us.” No shit, Sherlock!

Made up for the short walk when we got Montreal and had to walk about 1.5 miles (according to my fancy-dancy watch that tracks steps) from the gate to the taxi ranks. We were thinking we had walked to Quebec.

Day 1 in Montreal was just getting to downtown. Day 2 was taking the HOHO (Hop On Hop Off) bus around the city. Very nice, informative, and funny guide on the first bus. However, as nothing in life is ever simple, there was a marathon in Montreal so half of the stops were eliminated. Nobody informed the 10 of us waiting at stop 1, just two blocks away from our hotel. Finally a minivan from Grey Line showed up to tell us we had to go to the main office to start the tour. How, we asked hopefully? After some hemming and hawing, he allowed as how he could drive us there as the van held 10 and we were, ta-da! TEN! Off we went, leaving behind a couple who had just shown up.

It went wonderfully from then on. We went around twice (don’t ask!) finally disembarking (debarking?) where we could, very slowly, walk back to our hotel, Le Westin. Downhill, even.

Dinner at the hotel next door, the Intercontinental, at the bar. [Aside: why does an olive, WITH PIT, seem to be a universal part of a martini in Montreal? We have ordered martinis at our hotel and at the Intercontinental and both came with olives with pits,] Delightful evening as we sat next to an Aussie couple going on a different cruise and met a couple actually on our cruise on Tuesday (tomorrow!)

Dinner at our hotel was so-so. Canada will only allow them to cook a hamburger well done. The waiter promised it would still be juicy. It wasn’t.

Today dawned pouring down rain. So much for the HOHO for today. I’ll add some photos from yesterday to make me feel better about staying in the hotel! In random order.