We awoke to some ethereal views along the St. Lawrence.
When we landed in Quebec City several hours earlier than expected yesterday, our cruise director, Temu, had described the reason as a jet stream of a current. Apparently, the converse can be true as well.
As we were eating breakfast Monday morning, we learned that some river equivalent of a headwind of a current had slowed our progress and we'd be landing a couple hours late.
On an ordinary day, this would be only a modest rearrangement of tour buses, etc. On the all-important day of disembarkation, this was actually a pretty big deal. It was definitely not the time to envy our cruise director or the two tour leaders their jobs.
They had lined up cabs and other transport for 35 people. Rescheduling our two buses and local tour guides for the 76 or so of us Road Scholar types was relatively easily arranged. We would have to give up some of our planned stops (oops, there goes our Montreal bagel tasting!), but we weren't having to worry about train and plane connections like some of the other travelers.
We had to vacate our rooms by 8:30am. This allowed our cabin stewards to start their thorough cleaning in preparation for the group of folks that would be boarding in late afternoon for the return/reverse trip to Boston.
Though we docked around 10am, our rescheduled buses hadn't arrived. So there we all sat in the lounge with our hand luggage for a couple hours. No place to go and not much to do. We made a bit of a show of bidding our departing friends adieu as it was announced that their cabs had arrived. Eventually, our Road Scholar buses showed up, and we headed off the boat to identify our larger bags and assure they got onto the correct bus. We were taken to a spot in the old section of the city to begin a walking tour. The bus then delivered our bags to our hotel. A fairly nifty system, really, but the logistics of moving around as a group of nearly 80 has grown a bit tiresome.
We walked through a historical area with a local tour guide. The centerpiece of the walk was the beautiful Notre Dame Basilica. It was very crowded, but it's beauty still shone through.
We walked across the Place d'Armes (same as in Quebec, it means a former military parade ground) and got a quick tour through the historic Bank of Montreal building.
Then we walked to meet our now-returned buses. We drove through Chinatown, past the thriving McGill University, and then up to Mount Royal (or Mont Real, the source of the city's name). In the spirit of transportation glitches, we got caught in a construction-caused traffic jam that slowed our progress noticeably. Eventually, we made it to the top of the hill, but were only allowed to jump off for a quick photo. (Our other bus didn't even get to do that. They simply drove right on through the park.)
We all met up again at Montreal Brisket for some of the famed Montreal smoked meat. The sandwiches were very moist and tasty and came with a local beer, Griffon Red.
Next up was a visit to the Olympic Stadium. This didn't sound very interesting to me, but turned out to be pretty fun. The odd-looking stadium has a leaning tower, on the face of which is a large funicular. Turned out we were going to be riding up to the top, where we were able to walk around to see the views in all directions. Not being a person fond of heights, I initially wondered if I should wait this one out. But it looked kind of fun, so up we all went. I loved the view on the ride up and down, and enjoyed seeing the views of the city and river.
The afternoon stop we had to forgo was a visit to the botanical gardens, which are supposed to be pretty special. However, our buses drove right past the gardens and delivered us to our hotel. A number of people were pretty disappointed, but most of us were flagging and ready to get checked in.
After all, we had only 45 minutes to get to our room before we had to meet again to board those relentless buses. Off we were whisked to our final group dinner in the old port section of the city.
By the time we returned to our hotel, it had been a very long day. Since we had initially planned to disembark around 8am, most of us had started the day pretty early. Outside our hotel was a big festival celebrating the kickoff of the hockey season (could there be anything more quintessentially Canadian?), but we were dragging. Instead, we made our final farewells and hugs with new-made friends, found the business center so we could check in for our flights and print boarding passes, then headed to bed. Who had the time or energy to get sentimental about a trip coming to an end?
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