Estrie: the Eastern Townships, September 18 – 24, 2026

Montreal is eight hundred fifty miles straight north from Raleigh/Durham, almost exactly the same distance as New Orleans, just in the opposite direction. On American Airlines it would be two – one hour flights, connecting in PHL. Philadelphia airport may have issues but it features sometimes genuinely local food. At 11:00 AM I had just enough time to snag a Tony Luke’s (“The Real Taste of South Philly”) cold roast pork hoagie. (I learned it is NOT a submarine sandwich or a hero or even a po-boy; the hoagie was named the official city sandwich by mayor Ed Rendell in 1992.) Furthermore, where else would there be cold roast pork? Lettuce and tomato, please; only light mayo, oil and vinegar and oregano. I scarfed down the first half on the small Embraer jet from PHL to Montreal. My only regret is that I chickened out in offering half to some other passenger. Note the actual glass for wine. I somehow had gotten upgraded.

Window seats are underrated, at least on a nice day.

The Montreal airport is relatively close-in. I had brought my Bike Friday in its suitcase and Ubered to a hotel near downtown where I would stay five days hence. They had agreed to watch the empty suitcase. I put my rig together on the sidewalk out front and prepared to shove off. Even after all this it was barely one or two in the afternoon.

On the surface the Province of Quebec is attractive and prosperous. Private homes might be smaller than America but everyone seems taken care of; kindler and gentler, perhaps. Quebec has a series of pre-arranged bicycle routes called Route Verte combining rail trails, bike paths, and signed low traffic streets. My general plan was to cycle Route Verte One through an area called the Eastern Townships which now is mostly referred to by its French name Estrie, a word someone made up about 1946. It no longer is but it used to be the most English speaking part of Quebec. Over five days I would cycle out to the college town of Sherbrooke, then come back by bus. Montreal is a lovely city but on this first day I just wanted to bicycle somewhere even if my hotel this night would be in the likely uncool across-the-river suburb of Longueil.

My route over five days was basically parallel to the USA border which is that straight black line on the map below, less than fifty miles to the south.

I can speak and write only very limited French. Once I had left central Montreal I essentially never heard the English language spoken publicly. Everything was in French until I indicated that I needed to speak English whence people would politely switch to English. I watched hundreds of cars pass me while bicycling on public roads. Other than one New York State license plate in central Montreal, I saw not one USA license plate over these five days even though I was only about fifty miles from the border. I met no Americans except in central Montreal. Even more surprising, even though English-speaking Ontario is less than a hundred miles away, I saw only five or six Ontario license plates the entire time on Quebec roadways.

This first afternoon I cycled through Montreal streets before finding a bike trail system which loops through old industrial buildings along the riverfront.

In Quebec political signs showing candidate’s faces are ubiquitous. I have never seen signs like this in America. I suspect in central Montreal a radical look sells well. Back home in Carrboro NC they would like someone like Roxane.

There were others.

On an island in the St. Lawrence opposite downtown Montreal the bike path goes directly by the famous brutalist apartments from 1967, Habitat 67.

Hotel Le Dauphin in suburban Longueuil was fine, a newer place surrounded by office buildings. That evening I walked through empty streets of glass towers to Bistro Siège Social, a rare bright light of activity where I found a seat at the bar. Well dressed locals mostly about my age clustered at the regular tables. Canadian Quebecois food is NOT French cuisine. It is its own thing, closer to American than European. I had their beef salad special.

Delicious. I was still hungry so I ordered some frites. (In America they would not have offered mayonnaise as a dip.)

I walked back to the hotel in the dark.

Being in Quebec gives you a fresh view of what our country America is like. Suburban Quebec is SOMEWHAT like America except that everybody speaks French. The Canadians use the same telephone number system as us. They have yellow school buses. They have real estate signs everywhere. When you pay for almost any kind of service they ask on the credit card machine if you want to add a tip. Nevertheless there are differences. American hotel free breakfasts are a national embarrassment. They offer mostly pre-cooked, pre-packaged glop. Here in Longueuil breakfast was genuinely appetizing. I would find this all over Quebec and on other trips to nearby Ontario. The average free hotel breakfast in Canada is just better than America. Hotel Le Dauphin was not particularly expensive yet the croissants were fresh and we ate from genuine china plates and cups, although the cheese was packaged. I read my The New Yorker.

The weather on this bright and sunny morning in mid-September was perfect; lows in the fifties and highs in the upper sixties; almost no wind.

Route Verte One is a carefully planned and labeled bike route over a hundred miles long. I doubt it cost all that much to build but it is clear someone cares. In Longueuil it was mostly a bike lane along a regular street. Eventually it led me to a circular bridge across railroad tracks to a bike trail underneath power lines. On a Saturday morning there were lots of other cyclists.

This day would be the longest cycling day of the trip; about fifty-five miles. Route Verte One led me through various sections, on-road and in paths through the woods,.

For almost ten miles La Route Verte One follows the Chambly Canal. Completed in 1843 it allows vessels from Lake Champlain access to the St. Lawrence River and ultimately the Atlantic Ocean

In Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu I sat on a porch for coffee at Joséphine Café Traiteur which was staffed by young people and a comfortable loose vibe in an old house near the canal. A large oat milk latte with two packs sugar came in a big bowl, like they do in France. A delicious little sandwich! In America everything would have been on paper plates.

I cycled onward the thirty miles to Granby, away from the canal but mostly on a flat and straight trail built on a former rail line.

Granby (population 70,000) was one of two sizable small cities I visited other than Montreal. I had cycled nearly sixty miles that day and was ready for a beer. At a bar – restaurant in downtown Granby a CFL game played in the background, Toronto versus Edmonton. It’s like American football, except it isn’t. The field is 110 yards long and there are only three downs.

Using my iPhone I found a reasonably priced bed and breakfast just a few blocks away. I was the only guest. She let me put my bicycle in their garage.

On this Saturday night restaurants were busy. A ten minute walk took me to Restaurant DiCarlo with a menu almost clichedly red sauce Italian-American (compared to actual Italian) except here, I guess, it is Italian-Canadian. How would French speakers do Italian food? I was lucky to find a table.

First course was fried calamari.

Main course was spaghetti with sausage.

It was all good. I walked “home” in the dark. Just like in America, here they have older houses on main streets converted to medical offices.

The next morning the woman at the B&B worked hard to produce a lovely breakfast in an old-school looking dining room. We chatted.

I had to get out on the road. Rain was predicted starting late morning and then throughout the day, but turning sunny for the next several days. Twenty something miles away I had booked a resort hotel near a lake that purported to have a restaurant on site. Under threatening skies I again cycled La Route Verte One; here a lovely paved former rail line.

The phone had said rain would not start until about eleven but out here in the middle of nowhere a light drizzle that segued to actual rain started at nine-thirty or ten. I do have gear that supposedly keeps the upper half of my body and my luggage dry but nothing is perfect and it’s not pleasant in a fifty-eight degree chill. I was relieved to pull into Hotel Jolivent at just before eleven. I took this picture the next day, when it was no longer raining.

The woman at the front desk was nice enough, I guess, but said that a wedding had booked the entire hotel the night before and those guests were only just starting to check out. I would have to wait until mid-afternoon for my room. Dejected, I sat in the lobby and read the new David Sedaris book on my Kindle. After an hour or two I moved to their colorfully decorated restaurant where I was essentially the only customer. I ordered French Sauvignon Blanc and a pizza topped with prosciutto. This place has really good food.

There’s not much more to say about this rainy day other than I eventually did get my room. I came back to the restaurant that evening. Grilled octopus sat on a bed of eggplant cooked two ways; a baba-ghanoush-like lemony paste plus crispy bits of grilled eggplant, with fronds of dill. Amazing.

More pictures of food! The breakfast included with the room was, of course, great. Salmon, I now realize, is a big deal for Canada. Here I got smoked salmon on bagel with fried potatoes.

It was a sunny morning and I started cycling but life often throws us a curve. Within a mile of the hotel I realized my handlebars were radically unstable. It was similar to the condition my teenage son Jack had had with a 1990’s Chevrolet Lumina sedan that he had gotten from his grandfather, where he was so lucky not to be killed when the steering wheel suddenly just turned and turned, to no effect.

The nut on the quick release to the handlebars had somehow just fallen off!

I carefully cycle-walked back to the hotel unsuccessfully looking on the ground for the missing nut. There were no bike shops anywhere close but with my phone I located a hardware store five miles back in Waterloo, Quebec. Since it was mostly on a level paved cycle path I could slowly with extreme care cycle that short distance. After installing this jury-rigged nut-and-bolt everything worked fine for the rest of the trip.

It was nearly lunchtime when I was finally started cycling onward on Route Verte One. It was no longer a smooth flat bike path. We were getting into mountains. For much of the day I was on an up and down gravel road.

I skipped one ten mile section of Route Verte One because I thought it would be too tortuous, too off-road like. Instead I cycled on the normal two lane highway which generally had a smooth wide shoulder.

At a coffee shop in Eastman, Quebec I stopped for oat milk latte, one pack sugar, plus some kind of pizza-like tart.

My day’s destination was the lakefront resort town of Magog, Quebec.

There I found another bed and breakfast.

They say the Italians, when not in Italy, look for Italian restaurants abroad! The only thing Italian about my heritage is my sister married a guy from New Jersey with an Italian last name. Nevertheless I really do crave Italian food, especially stuff with tomato sauce. I have had eggplant parmesan all over America and now even several places in Canada. I found Alessa Trattoria on a main drag of downtown Magog, Quebec.

First course was fried calamari.

Here their eggplant parmesan is billed as an appetizer. Delicious.

I was still hungry so I got another appetizer, three arancini (deep fried rice balls with sausage) in tomato sauce.

I skipped dessert.

The next morning at my B&B, Au Manoir de la rue Merry, which had cost way less than two hundred dollars and did not seem all that upscale served me maybe the fanciest breakfast I have ever had. I had had no idea. The owners must do this not only for business, but because they want to. It was just me and an older couple. They had written up a menu on chalkboard.

Silverware was meticulously set out and they brought out a series of courses.

Homemade pâté

I had thought that was all but, no! The French toast plate had the prettiest spread of fruit I have ever seen.

Back on the road it was a beautiful day for the thirty miles or so to my final destination Sherbrooke, the largest city in the Estrie (Eastern Township) region. Part of it was on a bike path through a forest park.

Everything was quiet when I stopped at a picnic table in the forest. The silence was palpable.

I searched my brain for Canadian music. “Dance Hall Girls” comes from a CD I bought at a performance of the Winnipeg, Manitoba band The Duhks at North Carolina’s Merlefest in 2007. The song is written by New Brunswick-born songwriter Allan Fraser. This snippet is only a minute long.

Sherbrooke (population 173,000) is home to the forty-thousand student French-speaking University of Sherbrooke. Back closer to home I love cycling around Danville VA and downtown Sherbrooke’s steep streets of early 20th century commercial buildings leading down to a river look a lot like Danville VA except here everything seems more prosperous.

Historical coincidence: Danville VA seems proud that Jefferson Davis moved the collapsing Confederate government to Danville in 1865 for just a few days at the end of the American Civil War. A couple of years later after being let out of prison Jefferson Davis left America and moved himself and his family to three miles from where I was now, Lennoxville, Quebec, which is now classified as a neighborhood of Sherbrooke. He only stayed about two years. While he had been sorting out his legal situation he was sending his son to prep school at Sherbrooke/Lennoxville’s Bishop’s College, which in 2026 is still there and still English speaking, of course.

Down near Sherbrooke’s rail lines I sat in the sun for beer along with fish & chips at the brewpub Siboire Dépôt.

There were hardly any downtown hotels but I found Lilo Hôtel Atypique; ten or fifteen rooms occupying the walk-up third floor of a historic building. Low cost and actually quite nice; it was completely unstaffed, a type that seems increasing worldwide; blurring the lines of what’s an Airbnb. She texts you codes to get in; you text her back if you have problems. I assume that woman was local but I really have no idea.

Later on I walked up to a restaurant on the second floor of an older downtown building.

On the rare occasions Tootie and I eat out, both in Chapel Hill NC and New Orleans we often each get a gin gimlet. Especially in New Orleans I always ask for the obscure Gentilly Gin because I want to encourage bars to stock small local providers. In Sherbrooke I ordered my first cocktail of the trip, gin and tonic. I asked if they had any Quebec gin and she proudly said there are dozens of brands of artisanal Quebec-distilled gin. Who knew? Mine came from Quebec’s remote Gaspe Peninsula, halfway to Newfoundland. I asked to see the bottle.

The restaurant specialized in vegan cheeseburgers. Nice.

I had coffee and pastry early the next morning before getting on the bus. The coffee house, like many (but not all) coffee houses in Canada, had changed the description of a watered down espresso from “Americano” to the made up word “Canadiano.” Funny.

A bus called Limocar took three hours from downtown Sherbrooke to Montreal the next morning. I was prepared to pack and cover the bicycle like they request on their website but just like with Greyhound in Buffalo NY three years ago I didn’t have to unpack or fold anything. No one cared that I slid the fully loaded and assembled bicycle into the almost empty luggage area underneath.