Ottawa to Trois-Rivieres
Today’s drive continued into Quebec. You can read my original posts from the Tour du Canada 2013 in the following segments:
Overnight, I redesigned the planned trip for today. After yesterday’s experience of not having time to travel the full route, I reviewed the length of each segment of today’s route and determined that, again, there would not be time to follow the complete TdC route from 2013. The first change was to drive a direct route to just west of Montebello. This eliminated two ferry crossings and a bit of the remaining Ontario countryside. The second change was to follow a path that by-passed most of Montreal. The result included one ferry crossing and still included most of the scenic parts of the Quebec countryside.
I started the day, in Ottawa, with a dawn visit to Parliament Hill. The Peace Tower was covered with scaffolding and surrounded by cranes. The other buildings, however, were not under external renovations.
East of Montebello, we caught a ferry back to the south side of the Ottawa River.
We followed the Tour du Canada 2013 route along the Ottawa River for a ways. We again departed the route just past the campground, in Hudson that we camped at in 2013, and circumvented Montreal to the south. Once clear of Montreal, we rejoined the route on Hwy 138. In Berthierville, we found a nice little park to stop at for a picnic lunch.
Down the road, we came across a general store that I well remember from 2013. The business is part museum and part general store. I definitely remember stopping here and having our lunch, washed down with freshly-made lemonade. Today, for old times sake, we again had lemonade. It is still very good! Just as we were about to leave, I met with Richard, the owner. I ended up speaking with him for quite a while as he told me the history of the store.
Our last stop of the day was in Yamachiche where I photographed one of the streets and the church.
From there, it was to our hotel in Trois Rivieres.
While we did miss a fair bit of the TdC 2013 route, I think what we did cover gave Susan a good idea of the Quebec countryside, and of some of the places we visited in 2013. To say it is beautiful is an understatement. Quebec is called La Belle Province for good reason!
One thing that has become abundantly clear, over the trip so far, is that when zipping along at highway speeds, and being limited for time, there isn’t a lot of time to stop and take photos. As well, often, when you see something interesting, you are past it before it really registers. With time being a factor, often it just isn’t feasible to stop, turn around, and return to the spot. As well, many times there was no where on the side of the road to safely pull over. Riding at a more leisurely pace on a bicycle means that you see many things long before you get there. Pulling over isn’t a problem. And generally, in 2013, we had lots of time in the day to take photos whenever we wanted to.
Wind At Your Back 
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