Montreal Explored

Ah, yes, manageable, fun and fascinating Montreal. Two full days to explore the world's second largest French-speaking city. Since it was not our first trip -- it was Ben's third and amazingly John's ninth -- we could be reasonably selective about what to do.

Our first evening was on rue St. Catherine in the gay village, with a bad martini at one of the open air bars along the street, followed by a very good dinner of Asian food -- Cantonese style soup and imperial rolls, followed by mussels for John and chicken with crispy spinach for Ben. Much conversation with the neighboring table, an international interior designer, and his female friend.

The gites is extremely good and convenient. Maison des Jardins, owned by Luc Desjardins in the village gai. Enjoyed other guests, visiting from NYC as a group to celebrate one's 55th birthday.

We spent Sunday exploring the city on foot. An excellent show at the Musee des Beaux Arts of Napoleon I, a collection of 100 or so pieces. Then a walk along Sherbrooke and Crescent Streets and through McGill University. Dinner was ex quisite at D-Send of entre-deux-mers with duck confit and brandade de mouru.

Today off to explore Vieux
Montreal, a walk along the St. Lawrence, then to the older French neighborhood of Plateau Mont-Real. Lovely squares and interesting shopping and restaurants. We had lunch on a pedestrian way at a Greek restaurant and coffee on Blvd St Laurent. The homes in the region are French style built about 120 years ago by the
enterprising Quebecois.

Home as rain threatened and
as we go out to dinner before home tomorrow:

Eastern Townships and Quebec Wines

One thing we learned today is that there is only one apple brandy distillery in all of Canada. We thought in a province that produces kiloliters of cider that there'd be a market for fine apple brandies, like Calvados from Normandy. Nah. Not here. Because of government regulation of the industry only one distillery produces fine apple brandies, along with cider. We acquired.

This was part of our day long effort to learn something of Quebec wines. Yes, Quebec does have a wine industry as well as a cider industry. Bleueteries make blueberry wine, vergeries make cider and apple wines, and wineries use grapes, mostly hybrid varietals to make acceptable wines.

The Cantones de l'Est are lovely. Lake views, but no view of the Magog monster, Memphre. One night at the Auberge des Deux Peres and a fine meal at the Microbrasserie in centre-ville of canard-burger and lamb-burgers made our first night. Late yesterday we checked into Manoir Hovey, a marvelously precious gem of a chalet et relais on the banks of a beautiful lake.

Manoir Hovey gives you the opportunity to enjoy a menu degustation with wines to go with. To make everyone jealous, we had seven courses with seven different, mostly Canadian wines. Two French, seven Canadian--a Languedoc chardonnay viognier to go with scallops, a Mission Hills BC pinot blanc to go with daikon, and from there to Onandagun valley meritage, Quebec ice wine, and a madeira to finish. Great stars to go with the madeira as we sat outside.

Today, Montreal. Gay pillars on the Metro! More tomorrow.

Maine and Moose

Can you believe John and Ben got up at 6:30AM and left Bar Harbor at 7:10AM! We had enjoyed lobster at Poor Boys in Bar Harbor the night before, though the bartender had no onions for John's gibson. Anyway, a pasta with lobster for Ben and a agglomeration of lobster, shrimp and crab for John to enjoy. A Sonoma County pinot noir from Castlerock and a caesar salad with extra anchovies completed the meal. Then an early night to bed.

Grabbed bananas and muffins and then off to the road. It's a long 200 miles between Bar Harbor and Lac Mephremagog in Quebec, but interesting and in some ways very beautiful. We had the pleasure of clambering over the rocks around a waterfall in Maine's mountains, seeing first the moose sign and then the moose shortly thereafter and enjoying the vistas of lakes and hills. Very lovely.
We lunched in Colebrook, New Hampshire, which John and his brother Andrew had visited in 1954 when taking their grandmother to visit a childhood chum of hers from 1899 England in nearby Vermont. It has changed. The hotel where they stayed, once elegant, is now a dumpy looking aluminum sided box.

No problems at the border this time, just the requisite questions. No fourth degree, depsite our license plates.

Arrived at the BnB and have enjoyed the company of the owners. Normand et Bruce. John is practicing his French which has become a bit rusty. The lake is gorgeous, the weather warmer than Bar Harbor's 42F (5C) yesterday and we enjoyed the swimming pool here and sat out for a little and read.

Tonight to a microbrasserie and tomorrow to the Routes des Vins to find suitable apple brandies to bring home.

Rocks, Fog and Chills

Mount Desert Island is the home of the most easterly national park, Acadia, a park given mostly by the rich who have inhabited the island since the mid 19th century. Before that it was a small fishing town, founded late, in the 1760s. The park is known for its magnificent mountains and coasts. Unfortunately the park today is covered with drizzling rain and the mountains shrouded in impenatrable fog, through which John could barely see 15 feet as they ascended 1500 feet above the ocean.
But the ocean itself, with lovely small islands, was open to us. We boarded a small boat with a group of other tourists and a park ranger, heading out to Little Cranberry Island in the Gulf of Maine, checking out lobster pots, walking the lanes of Isleford, home to 70, one of only 14 still inhabited islands along the state's coast.

From there we managed lunch at a small restaurant in Bar Harbor today, hit by an unforeseen power outage that closed down the whole town for about half an hour. Very good chowder, good sandwich.

Quite unlike dinner last night, at the Cafe This Way, a bistro down a small lane. Cute waiter who presented us with a menu of excellent dishes and good, reasonable wines: starters: roast beets with chorizo and quail eggs, tuna tartare with kimchee and cukes, then halibut crusted with peanuts and Maine crabcakes. A bottle of Castilian Alia of temperanille and pierto picune. Lovely meal.
This afternoon we did the a mesmerizing fog to ride up Cadillac Mountain, but the coastal run along the edge of the park was exhilirating, even if bone-chilling cold.

Tonight our last Maine lobsters for a while and then early tomorrow a long trip to Lake Magog in Quebec.

We did not, however, buy the lobsters, but we saw evidence of the industry all over the place. It seems that every lobster person has their own color buoy and can therefore identify their pots. They need to be checked every three days or the lobsters begin to cannibalize each other.

The drive up to Bar Harbor was long and wet, but through some beautiful bays and small towns. We stopped in Belfast for lunch at a small lunch shop on the main street, Belfast Soup and Sandwich, run by a Mainer with a wonderfully strong accent, of Italian descent, whose grandma had made and passed on the recipe for Sicilian flat bread. Excellent sandwiches and very good Sicilian soup.

Fought fiercely at Harvard, now basking in the Maine sun

Harvard was a blast. I thoroughly enjoy the architecture and the beauty of Harvard. We managed to get in some excellent lectures including a sayonara to the class of 74 by Peter Gomes, the Episcopal cleric who has been the college's religious leader since he arrived with Ben's incoming class as a professor in 1970. He is quite unique and gives a good history of the last 35 years or so. Much is forgotten,but he is the institutional memory of Harvard at the moment and his retirement in 2012 will mark the end of an era.

A reunion is often a chance to party, which we did excessively, particularly John, but it is also a time to reflect. The class of 74 certainly did reflect in the answers it gave to its class survey. They will apparently be published on the reunion website, but by and large the results of the survey show a successful and happy group of very bright men and women who have enjoyed their lives immensely. And richly. Over half of them are in family's with incomes over $250,000 and nearly 10% earn over $500K per year. Not a class of paupers, though one success's wife remarked to John that she and her husband were paupers after paying for their five children to go to name-brand universities.

The reunion also brought home the squalor of dorm life. Yech. Small grubby rooms, poor plumbing, uncomfy beds. Just dragged home Caswell Hall (at Brown) to John. The food however is much improved and much healthier.

During our Boston time, we had a grand visit with daughter and son-in-law,and his parents. They did us proud with a grand dinner of grilled veggies and pizza, good wine, and a birthday cake. We provided S-I-L with a chinois strainer for his jam making endeavors.

We were also fortunate enough to spend time at the Museum of Fine Art's Tintoretto, Titian and Veranesi exhibit. A magnificent chance to see and compare the brilliant lights of Venetian rennaissance art, their highs,their competition, and their choice of subject. Worth every minute of the time spent there.

We also added in a short exhibit of Showa 1930s Japanese art from the MFA's collection. Pre WW2 art, often poster style, showing the modernity of Japan as it slipped into the militarism that brought on the war.

We left Cambridge happy in the renewal of old friendships, and came to the beauty of Maine. We pigged out on lobster last night at the Lobster Shack in Perkins Cove, near our base in Ogunquit. Two 1.5 lbs. lobsters. Excellent, along with fish and steamer chowder.








Today we were off to the Seacoast Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport. John found it a wonderful chance to explore history, from old US cars, remnants of the old Boston Elevateds, and a Glasgow tram of the 1950s to a small collection of Massachusetts and Swiss trolley busses. The whole museum collection is much bigger than the collection held by the Pittsburgh based Pennsylvania Trolley Museum, but nowhere near as well presented. Seacoast is the oldest trolley museum in the world, but perhaps not the best. John did not feel it worth spending $50 to drive a trolley, but it was a good day.

We continue our search for the perfect xdry cap. Over the weekend it was Peets in Cambridge, today it was Caffe Prego in Ogunquit, Yesterday it was Ollie's in Exeter, Hew Hampshire. Who knows about tomorrow as we search on the way to Bar Harbour.

A trip north to Massachusetts

We left Washington early on June 1 on our trip North to Ben's Harvard reunion, visiting family on the trip and then on to Maine and Canada. Of course, the search for the perfect Greek diner and the perfect extra-dry cappucino continued unabated.

We stopped at the Maryland House on I95 for our morning java; the clerks knew how to teach the newbie how to make cappucino with only foam, no liquid milk. Like most Startbucks the product was acceptable. Our next stop, the Sage Greek diner on route 73 in New Jersey. This is one of our favorite Greek diners on the trip to NY, and we were not disappointed, either in the portion of hamburger for John nor the spinach pie for Ben. Stuffed but happy we continued north.

Connecticut with brother Andrew and family was fine. The weather was superb, and the 24year old cabernet sauvignon we carried for our 24 y o nephew's birthday still had some fruit left. Of course, after a couple of hours open the wine had turned nasty. The following morning, we lazed overlooking the lake, nibbling bagels and lox and not doing much. We had a fine steak dinner with Cannonball cab to go with for dinner. Good steak, good wine, good company.

Wednesday morning, we left Connecticut for Cambridge and Ben's reunion. We stopped in Providence for exquisite coffee at the Blue State Coffee Company on Thayer Street adjacent to the Brown campus. Excellent coffee, xxx dry cappucino made to order and a lovely latte from fair trade, organic beans. This is one of Ben's favorite East Coast coffee stops. Then a chicken wrap at the local Greek restaurant to fill us for lunch.

Arrived in Boston, drove into the parking garage. Now safely esconced with friends Joe and Howard, in Winthrop House on the Harvard campus. Worse than the worst Motel 6 we've ever been in, but the room's poverty, (How do undegraduates live like this?) is made up by the friends we've seen. Good British bitters at John Harvard's brew pup last night with the HGLC group, great company at the dinner in the courtyard, and this morning, as Ben and Joe head off to Commencement, John ventures off for lunch with his daughter and Howard will join them for lunch at the faculty club.

Cambridge and the Harvard campus are awash in the colors of academia, with all the various robes of the academics on show. The crowds of parents, undergraduates and graduates show the wealth of talent around here. And the day became beautiful. We look forward to more.