K & L's Travel Blog

It’s Thursday September 14th and we ride the train tomorrow to Quebec. That means all the anxiety of packing, cleaning up and getting ready.  But meanwhile we have a whole day and we want to make the best of it.  

After scoping out our route to the train station for tomorrow we stop at the Crew Collective Café.  It is a huge old cavernous building with couches and a coffee shop.  They have sectioned off work spaces that people buy time to use.  It was an old bank and you can still see the brass cages and marble walls.

We buy sandwiches for a picnic and head up on a bus to Mount Royal.  It is a large mountain in the center of town that is green with woods.  The bus ride is curvy and steep.  The driver flies and we appreciate the trees and views.  

They have an old “chalet” that overlooks the city.  We eat our lunch of duck and cranberry sandwiches, beet and quinoa salad.  What luck that we found such a wonderful picnic and can have such a view to enjoy it with.  

Riding back down the mountain a whole class of children crowd on the bus with us.  Tons of laughter and energy as we all get slung from side to side.

I love Kitty’s optimistic take on the bus ride down the plateau with 50 eight-year olds. I’ll leave my version for another day! We were heading back to the apartment so we could do some packing chores only to find the one remaining elevator broken. We had stood there and pushed the button for service. We could hear a conversation inside. The door did open and a man and woman got out. They were both shaken from being stuck between floors. Luckily a tenant entered and had a number to call for maintenance. Nothing to do but go next door and have a beer at the Victoria Pub terrace. A pint proved perfect timing and we returned to find a functional ascenseur that took us to the 14th floor and with enough time to pack and be ready for dinner. It did make me realize that I’m not up for any long-term high-rise living.

We have reservations for a restaurant that Lorena found for us months ago.  It has the strange name of “Pub Jelly”.  It is a spin off from a larger resturant called “Jelly Fish”  It is billed as elevated pub food.  It was the best meal we have had so far.  

We ordered Prince Edward Island oysters: White magic and Gowanbrae.  We all ways enjoy fresh PEI oysters.  Then we had a Cauliflower tempura with a spicy maple sauce and burnt green onion tapenade.  I love crabs and we tried one of the  Manicouagen snow crab.  I have had Alaskian snow crabs but theses come from northern Quebec. The meat was sweet and tender and so worth the time to pick it all out.  We ordered a small two portion pizza with Nordic shrimp, tarragon white sauce, roasted rapini and pecorino.  

We splurged and had a bottle of white wine.  It was a real celebration in a beautiful spot.  We had a short walk home.  Then time to finish cleaning.