Friday, June 27th we left Quebec City crossed over the bridge to the south side of the St. Lawrence and headed north east with our destination Ste. Flavie. Quebec.
We were surprised by how muddy the river looked and the shore line was mud flats.
Our bed and breakfast for the next two nights was the Centre d'Art Marcel Gagnon in Ste. Flavie, Quebec. This was a combination art gallery, gift shop, restaurant and hotel.
Our room was small but comfortable. We had one window - it's there on the second floor on the right side of the building next to the sign on the side wall.
Here's our view from that window.
Marcel Gagnon is known for his armless figures.
They appear in the river when the tide goes out.
I think they may have been wood originally but now most are cast concrete.
This one was a bit different.
Then there was this sculpture.
We had the best breakfasts here included with our room and served in the restaurant.
This is a very popular spot along the St. Lawrence as evidenced by all the cars that would stop to visit. We'd made a reservation for dinner here our first night at their suggestion. Our second evening the restaurant was booked full with a large bus tour group. We found another chain restaurant and had pizza.
Lunch our second day here was the best of anywhere. We'd asked a local where was a good place to eat and she recommended a restaurant one town to the north: Le Matelot in Baie-des-Sables. She even made a reservation for us for 1 pm. Good thing too, as it was very popular.
I had a lobster salad and
Dan had a lobster club sandwich.
Here was our strawberry dessert.
I wrote about the garden visit in this postcard. We also visited the Musee de la Neuvfe-France just south of Ste. Flavie. This place is also known for it honey wine which we tasted and purchased two bottles.
Upstairs is a collection of artifacts from New France from before European settlement through Colonial times. It was fascinating! Sorry for all these pictures but you must see how extensive it is and all collected by this man. We had a wonderful conversation with him and discovered that his father lived in NH as a youngster but the 1919 flu wiped out the family except for his father who then came to Quebec to live with an uncle.
Oldest artifacts below including Clovis points and a mastodon bone.
It is well cataloged. We had access on our phone to the catalog.
I meant to ask him what will happen to this when he's gone. Maybe he's already made plans to give it to the Gaspe Museum which we visited later in our travels.
To be continued - this is already too long!
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Mary, New Hampshire and Vermont both border Quebec to the north. The shortest route for us was to get on Interstate 91 north to the Vermont/Canada border - about 2.5 hours.
John, Dan tried his best to learn French. He would often ask a question in French but unfortunately the response came too fast to understand. The Quebecoise would then switch to English. They were very kind about the French he spoke. Just about everyone had a better grasp of English than Dan did of French. One exception was a young woman acting as a guide who struggled with English.
As Americans, we did apologize about how Canada is being treated by that man in the White House. We made sure those we spoke with knew we were not in agreement with that treatment.
Linda, Skeeters exist everywhere! When we hiked in Gaspe we had to wear insect repellant.
