Episode 28
8/2019

After leaving Quebec City we drove over towards montreal. We stayed about 45 minutes outside of Montreal in Terrebon.
We drove into Montreal and we wanted to visit the Notre Dame basilica. We found that the parking near there is super expensive. But if you walk three blocks away towards the waterfront parking is dirt cheap. The waterfront had a great amusement park for kids and IMAX theater Ferris wheel a zip line climbing ropes. So if you have kids. We found that Old Montreal was not as quaint as old Quebec. While in the city we had a crepe Suzette which was delicious we visited Chinatown in Montreal and it's the same as any other Chinatown. That evening we went to see Aura! at the basilica. It was $25 to get in but I'll tell you what it was as good as any Broadway show. We heard about this show 7 years ago when we were in Montreal and we finally got to see it. If you're in Montreal and the show is happening do yourself a favor and see it. They light up The altar with accent lighting mystical music was playing and you could walk around the cathedral and see all the different stations of the cross in statues lit up beautifully. My description of this will not do it justice. They changed the lighting as you would watch a statue so it almost look like they came to life they give you 20 minutes to walk around the cathedral and take pictures. And then you sat down and the music played and the organ played and the lights played with everything on the altar and within the cathedral. We've seen a lot lots of light shows and laser shows and concerts but this was the best by far. It was not necessarily religious but it was emotionally moving. The next day we visited L'isle Des Moulins which had nice walking paths and a historic site. The next day we visited the Montreal botanical gardens. Again we saw the 7 years ago but it was in the middle of the winter so there was really nothing to see at that time. So when we went back we figured we would be there an hour or so and it turned out to be a 6-hour visit. I've been to the Bronx botanical gardens many times but this blew those away. We then drove about 20 minutes to Gay Village. Which is one of the largest gay neighborhoods in North America. They closed the main street down to cars. This area is not as over the top as Provincetown on Cape cod but it is also not as uptight as Greenwich village New York City. We were really impressed with Montreal. And can't wait to go back. The next day we started following the St Lawrence River to the Southwest over to Kingston ontario. I've been to Kingston about 35 years ago when I was in the national guard and we would do our annual training for drum. As I remember Kingston it was extremely clean and beautiful. I was a bit disappointed it was a lot more garbage graffiti the Montreal and or Quebec City. Actually a lot more. We read that there was a nice waterfront trail there. But it was short and not overly impressive. It did however go past and very unusual Park. It had no name but it's next to the hospital it had a beach and a diving platform into a pool very odd but very nice. The night we did a sunset dinner cruise out through the thousand Islands it was beautiful we sailed out of Kingston. The cruise offered a five course meal the food was excellent. The scenery was superb. The boat was just okay very crowded. We enjoyed our first class of wine and when we received our second class the wine had been corked. We told waitress and she said it's the same as the first glass that she served. She then told us to ask the lady at the next table at the second glass tasted any different I shook my head but I asked her and the other guest said actually it did taste different. For this cruise we paid $100 each. I don't think at those prices we should have to argue about a glass of wine. The website said that the boat had an upstairs promenade so we visited it but there was a rule of no taking flash pictures...