Charlevoix

It smells like pig. And not the yummy bacon kind, but the live, squealing, I don't know where you are but the wind is gong the right direction and thank the heavens I haven't had breakfast yet pig. Actually, it's not that bad. And it's not all of Charlevoix.

This was the smell that greeted nay, embraced us like long lost kin when we arrived at the Maison Chez Laurent yesterday. After a couple of hours driving east through beautific hills with surprise glimpses of the St. Lawrence along the way, evoking a tranquility in us all that must rival that of heaven, this air-born delight was a welcome respite. Someone really should bottle it and use it for aroma therapy.

Maison Chez Laurent is a motel located just outside Baie-St-Paul, one of the lovely towns dotting the Charlevoix region. I have not had the privilege of staying in a motel before, and I am happy to report that it has lived up to the exacting standard/bias I have formed over the years in the absence of empirical data.

The region is delightful and we spent a relaxing day discovering some of it, going as far east as Saint-Simeon to dip our toes in the St. Lawrence and clambe along the rocks, and stopping for dinner at Restaurant L'Orchidee in La Malbaie. Wonderful food, excellent service. Seafood all around for the lot of us. Go figure. What else do you eat after tracing the St Lawrence river for a day.

Previously in the day we had spent our time attempting to explore parts of the Charlevoix "Flavour Trail", a collection of artisinal and otherwise bakers, brewers, cheese makers, farms, well, you get the idea. We collected baguette, pate, squeaky cheese, smoked salmon, cider, and of course chocolate, found an excellent spot to picnic, and proceeded to polish off the lot. All of it scrumptuous.

Oh, as an aside. We all like food. It's gonna come up a fair bit. I mean, the point of this day was to go around to different places and eat, so ya, you get the idea. We like food.

I would say that the one disappointment about that part of the day was that their weren't enough places that offered samples. Following the map, available at many of the places noted on said map (go figure) we seemed to end up mostly in stores, rather than in where things actually get done. Not that things don't get done in stores but either you get my meaning or you are being deliberately obtuse and I really don't appreciate that. Actually, I do appreciate being deliberately obtuse. It can be fun.

Anyway, based on previous experience in other parts of the world (wineries in the niagara region for instance) we assumed that the places on the map would be the place where the work gets done, and that they would have a lovely little store with tasting counters offering free, or token priced samples of their wares. And in all honesty, we had hoped to spend the day gorging ourselves in this way and not have to pay for a meal or two. Alright, I can't speak for everyone else in the car, maybe that was just me.

In truth, we didn't get to a lot of them, and, had we done a bit (read "any") research before coming into the area we likely would have known where these types of places were, which ones we definitely wanted to get to, and the best way to move between them that would allow for the optimal order of epicurial experience.

That said, it was a great day filled with great experiences. I am sure along the way that some days will be more planned than others. I am very good at planning. I like it. I almost need it. And I am trying to tone down that particular behaviour. Not orchestrating each experience along the way means possibly missing something that would have been super cool. Orchestrating everything along the way means missing experiences that just "come up". Either way you experience stuff and you miss stuff. I guess the trick is to make the most of whatever you experience, and I believe we all did a good job of that in Charlevoix.