Hurrah for an easy day into Trois Rivières

Sonia, our host, is an inspiration. She is a jeweller, teaches jewellery making, has an apartment and studio in Quebec City as well as this place, and has a very lovely life. For two corporate escapees, it is fascinating to find out how other people live, and to see the happiness that comes from a seemingly simple life.

We learn all this from Sonia as she puts together breakfast for us. I’m not an egg-and-bacon eater, so she whips up some buckwheat and chia pancakes with fruit and maple syrup for me.

Fueled up, we get on the bikes and hit the road to Trois Rivières.

Today our route is a cyclist’s dream – relatively flat and extremely pretty, with the St Lawrence River to our left, and lovely, green, farming countryside all around.

We follow the Chemin du Roy – the King’s route – for most of the day (as we did yesterday). This is an historic route, with the original road completed back in 1737. Back then, there were few roads in Quebec, and nothing that joined Quebec, the capital, with Montreal. The grand council decreed there should be such a road, and thus it was so. When the original road was completed, it was 7.2m wide, and stretched over 280km. Apparently you could make the trip between the two cities in two days, at full gallop. Pity the horses!

The modern route 138 is built along this old route, and serves many purposes, includng as a touristic route, and a cycleway. We are spoilt again with dedicated bike lanes and extremely courteous motorists.

People are very house proud here. We pass many lovely houses with magnificent gardens, and massive expanses of green grass. Lawn mowing businesses must thrive here during the short summer. During the winter, this grass is going to be covered by mountains of snow, and would never thrive in the extremely negative temperatures – we have heard minus 20, minus 20, minus 40 – it beggars belief.

We have a fortunate early arrival into Trois Rivières, which makes time for ice cream before checking into our room for the night.

How many rivers do you think there are in Trois Rivières? Anybody with the slightest exposure to French is going to translate, and be … wrong!

The town sits on the St Lawrence, our constant companion these past few days, but its name comes from the three branches of the Saint Maurice river. From the main St Lawrence riverside area you can see the three mouths of the river, and we even crossed over two of the three branches as we came into town.

Apparently almost everybody gets it wrong.

We stay the night at Maison Wickenden, a very pleasant B&B near the centre of town. Our host directs us to ‘the best restaurant in town’  Poive Noir which has a terrace that overlooks the river. We enjoy our post-ride beer here, and then come back for an al fresco dinner after a quick turn around town.

The town has a pretty amazing amphitheatre, set right on the river bank, that attracts many quality acts. At the moment Cirque du Soleil is here, drawing huge crowds to the town, with people even travelling from Montreal and other far flung places for evening entertainment.

A pretty town, definitely worth a stop over.

Stats for today:

• Distance: 65km
• Climb: 100m
• Average speed: 19.7km/h
• Average temperature: xxC
• Moving time: 3:18:30
• See our ride on Stravav

The beer picture

At the end of a day’s ride, our tradition is to enjoy a beer, and to photograph it for posterity. Today’s beer picture was taken at Poivre Noir a restaurant and bar with a view of the St Lawrence river.

Along the way today: