Adirondack Park, Massachusetts and Connecticut

Road Trip from Montreal to Great Barrington, Massachusetts and on to Connecticut!

We left Montreal and headed southeast driving through a small portion of the Quebec Province and then crossed the border into New York state.

Au Sable, New York

We began our beautiful drive through some of the Adirondack Park.

The leaves were just beginning to turn and we saw some lovely fall foliage.

We crossed the border from New York into Massachusetts near Stockbridge and headed south to Great Barrington where we spent the night.

We went downtown that evening for dinner and an ice cream cone.

The next morning we left headed south for Connecticut.

We passed some beautiful scenery as we left Great Barrington.

Then we passed through Sheffield, MA.

There were lots of fun antique shops along our way and we stopped at some of them. One of these stops was at Susan Silver Antiques. I bought a cup and saucer and it was guess what? Blue and white!

 We then drove to Connecticut - this was our 50th and the last state needed to  visit all the states in the union!!

 We stopped at a cute shop in Norfolk that had items made by local craftsmen. I ordered a print of a watercolor of some hydrangeas.

As we traveled on, we passed this beautiful church in Winsted, CN.

Our drive then took us passed the Seville Dam and reservoir in West Barkhamsted.

This scenic dam is an earthenware embankment with attractive masonry work on beautiful Lake McDonough.

By then we were getting hungry and wanted lobster and clam chowder!
S we drove then to the seaside village of Noank to a restaurant that had been recommended to us.

Ford's was right down on the water's edge with outdoor dining and the lobster was fresh!

These photos show the views from our table.

The clam chowder was really good and we ordered a 3 lb. lobster to share - it was awesome!

After dinner we headed to our hotel but when we saw Herb's Country Store, we had to stop and check it out!

Herb's son was minding the store and he was really friendly and talkative. He told us all about the store and Herb's restaurant next door. We wound up buying a small cherry pie to share and some maple candy to take home.

The bright autumn flowers and pumpkins were so colorful!

Then we went to our hotel after our busy day of sightseeing, shopping and eating!

Our After Cruise Trip

After we left our ship, most of our family spent an extra day and night in Quebec City and then flew home the next day. Evan had a business trip to Florida lined up and He, Hailey and Conrad (who were all unable to get a flight out of Quebec City that day because of the 6 cruise boats in the harbor and the many people leaving then) So... we all rented a van and drove to Montreal. The trip took about 2 1/2 hours. We took Hailey and Conrad to the airport to fly home and Evan, Hal and I then traded our van in for a small car and checked into our hotel. Evan and Kelly had been to Montreal on business trips so Evan knew the city and what we should see in the time we had. Our hotel was in a great location and it was a beautiful day so we set off walking to see the old part of the city.

Old Montreal

 

We continued down the street and went inside of the pretty church that you see in the background. The church is one of the oldest in Montreal and is named the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel. This is sometimes referred to as the "Sailor's Church" because the sailors would come here to pray before and after a safe voyage.

 There were beautiful paintings and stained glass windows.

 Even the ceiling was adorned with paintings.
We continued on through Vieux Montreal (the borough named after the first fort which later became Montreal).

I loved these fun bronze statues of 3 ladies gossiping!

 We passed this tempting storefront and I had to settle for a picture rather than a cupcake to eat!

We then made our way to the Notre -Dame Basilica.

 Closer views of the Basilica

 Across the square from the Basilica was the statue of 

Paul de Chomedey, who was a French military officer and the founder of Montreal.

Evan knew of a wonderful Syrian restaurant and made reservations for us there

 We were seated on the patio and enjoyed a delicious meal of beautifully prepared food including salads, main dishes, pita bread and dessert.  The flavors were unique and tasty!

 The pita bread was warm, puffy and wonderful!

You can see by the empty dishes that we loved it!

After dinner, we took an Uber back to our hotel. The next morning we took Evan to the airport and then Hal and I took off for Massachusetts!