Wednesday 

We left Danielson about 8.00am and arrrived in Montreal about 4.30pm. We have no idea how many miles we have done - no one thought to check. We first went to Charlton in Massachusetts to pick up Jamie's mum Kathy. This wasn't too far from where we fueled up the truck (see below) and ourselves (Dunkin Donuts) at Spencer. The staff at Dunkin Donuts were typical of all American fast food staff - snappy. For a start they don't just sell doughnuts, they sell all sorts of flour based fluffy puffy stuff and they really should give you time to decide. I had to leave and let others make my choice.

The Truck

You can see alongside, that the vehicle we travelled in is something of a truck. It is a Nissan Armada. It's not the vehicle we chose but - well, it's a long story. 

Gail had booked a 'mini-van' (people carrrier) with the car hire firm Enterprise and had arranged to pick up a Ford something or other at their Moosup branch about 4.00pm Tuesday. Off we toodled, only to find that our vehicle "wasn't ready yet due to a probelm with its keys!" - "would we like to take the Nissan Armada outside instead?" Well, we inspected the truck (pictured) and it came up wanting. We'd needed a vehicle larger than a normal car because there would be five of us travelling and it wouldn't be comffortable for such a long journey. The 'Truck' has eight seats (as had the originally booked Ford) - so should have been an ideal choice. However, it didn't have the luggage space that eight people would require AND it only (reportadly!!) did 12 miles per gallon (see side bar). We therefore decided to reject the gas-guzzzling monster. Gail took a trip up to Putnam (the other CT office) to pick up the vehicle we had booked.

The short story is that this vehicle was dirty and infested with fleas.

The long story is more laboured and distressing but in the end, if we were to travel to Montreal at all, on the day booked (we'd paid a deposit on our appartment), we would have to take the truck. Hey ho!

Thursday

Well, we arrived in Montreal ok and easily found the appartment. The city seems to be nice and flat - although the locals do talk about their 'mountain' - so we'll have to explore that.

We set off walking to find the latin quarter and found it just around the corner from where we are staying on Rue Champlain. The term 'latin' seems to be a quaint way of saying 'gay' becaause the deeper we got into it, the more it looked like Canal Street in Manchester or the gay village in Sydney. As it started to rain about this point, we spent quite a bit of time here.

When lunchtime came along, we popped into an Italian restaurant. Much to Betony's dismay and everyone else's amusement, I was now hit on heavily by the (not too young) waitress! I’m not sure what caused this interest, but it manifested itself in free beers, repeated touches on the arm and shoulder – and much laughing. She didn’t speak much English and I don’t speak all that much French but this didn’t matter – we had cracked it! She was delighted that we had come all the way from England (we didn’t mention the yanky doodle dandies with us) and (apart from us having to wait ages for our meal) she wouldn’t leave us alone. The food was ok and the price was ok – but I didn’t dare go to the loo on my own. This caused the girls much amusement.

Friday

Today, because it wasn’t going to rain (but it did – just a little bit), we decided to visit the city’s Botanical Gardens (and its Insectorium) and the Biosphere. Both of these are up by the Montreal Olympic Stadium. Gail took better photos than the rest of us so i'll just drop the fountain here. however, it was a good day, we saw lots of interesting things. I particualrly liked the Bioshpere which seems to have originally been the Olympic pool, although I may be wrong.

One really memorable thing for me was the sight of  Atlantic Sturgeon. These were huge fish and apparently now quite rare. The fish tank here had enormous Cod with Skate, Salmon Mackeral etc. It was better than visiting a Sea Life centre.

We had the bison we'd bought yesterday as our 'starter' for dinner tonight, lightly sauteed with bubble and squeek! You'd be surprised just how tasty it is. We enjoyed it so much that we bought minced Bison to make a Bolognese on Saturday.

Saturday

We spent today in the old town. This bit of Montreal lines the river and is where the prairie grown wheat of years gone by was shipped out to Europe. There is (at least) one huge silo that has been kept for posterity but it does look ugly. At the moment it needs a touch up, to fit in with the rest of the re-built, re-touristed area. At least you can 'shout down it' on the Silophone. There is currently a garden exhibition spread out around its base. We had lunch in an Italian restaurant where Sharon was unamused by her Caesar Salad and told the waiter so. He said "thank you" which made Sharon even angrier.

Kathy and I went up the clock tower, (The "Tour de l'Horloge") which gave us good views of Montreal. There is a mountain in the middle of the city!

Sunday

I'm sure that I will write much more, when I get back to Connecticut, and addd photoes, as promised, but for now I must be brief - we're going out in a short while, for a meal and I still have to get ready. (I'll leave that in)

We spent most of today up Mont Royale and in the posh bit of Montreal. Mount Royle is lovingly called 'the mountain' by the locals, but unless you go up something very high (like the clock tower/lighthouse - yesterday) or stand a long way back (like away towards Quebec), you can't see it. It is unusual inasmuch as it springs right up there from the middle of the city, but as you walk around it is hidden from you.  We walked to the top (not the real top, but the 'Chalet' top - which is top enough for most people) and back down again to the bottom - then up the west end to the museum of fine arts.

Before we went up the Mount, we stopped and watched/listened to the tam tam players who, apprently, turn up every Sunday  to entertain in the park. Interesting, but unless you're an avid tam tam person - monotonous! I kept expecting Carlos Santana to jump in with a sexy guitar riff at every moment.

We then descended the mountain and walked up the west end to the Fine Arts Museum. That evening, we went out to eat - our first evening meal out. We ended up in a Portugese restaurant on St. Dennis, having found that the French restaurant we'd aimed for - closed.

Monday

We set off about 8.30am and arrived back in Danielson about 6.30pm - a ten hour drive! However, we did stop for breakfast halfway down Lake Champlain. This place looked quaint but ws huge. At the front we could but buns and pastries for breakfast and choose our own coffee. They also had a cook area but that as too much for me to take in! It reminded me of Ike Godsey's Store in The Waltons. The view from our table outside on the main route 2 through the islands and Vermont was tremendous - but unrecorded!

We then drove on further into Vermont and stopped off at Ben and Jerry's factory in  Waterbury.