Hello WordPressland!
I finally stole a quiet moment here to write out Day 1 of our Montreal getaway that we had taken last week.
As I mentioned in my Fourth of July post, this trip came up pretty much last minute. My husband had work related meetings on the Tuesday and Wednesday before the Fourth, and wanted to make a mini-getaway happen. (Yes, I am about to say it. I am so glad that he did!!)
Did I ever mention how much I love Montreal? The sights. The sounds. The food. The fashion. The people. The French… The everything! I have an affinity for Montreal, as it’s the very first ‘foreign’ location without my immediate family that I had ever visited. It was the first trip that my husband and I had ever taken. We were both under the drinking age at the time, basically dating a year or close to it, and IT WAS SUCH A BLAST! It is somewhere we ended up going back to visit a few times before we had bought a house and had children, and, luckily, last year we had the opportunity to go back up as a family. Our kids really enjoy Montreal, for the same reasons I love it, too. Which made going up this second time all together a real treat.
I am not sure if you guys remember our Montreal trip last year..? We had planned to go by the town of Coaticook before heading to Montreal, but the timing didn’t work out for us. My husband is working with a multi-media Canadian based company who has installations all over Canada, in Coaticook is one of the big ones. As he was offered tickets to see the show again, we made sure that we went up earlier to head over to check it out.
What a fun town! We got to our hotel, OTL in Sherbrooke, at around 5PM. The plan was to swim a bit, head to dinner locally and then drive to the show for our 10PM reservations. The second we got to the pool area within our hotel, a crazy thunder and lightning storm started! It was insane! The booming sounds of thunder were magnificent. But the lights flickered a lot, added to the views from the windows above, it was like scenes from a movie. But as soon as we got ready to eat, the storm died down, making it a lot easier to go to dinner. Especially as we had to bundle up for the late night fun. Lots of jeans, leggings, sweatshirts, sweaters, and hoodies. That was just me. hahah jk! But I did wear a tank under a sweater which was under a hoodie! I was chilly and afraid of getting eaten alive by bugs.
But off to dinner!
The weather cooperated a lot. We had made reservations to a place called OMG Resto. It’s name is a play on the location, it is a converted church turned restaurant; the place was pretty cool! The service was top notch. The drink menu was pretty unique, and the food was great. We shared a fried mac n’cheese appetizer, then my crew grabbed a cheeseburger each and I got the fish n’chips.
After dinner, we all felt real good and happy. We made our way to Coaticook for the show. It was about a 35-minute drive from Sherbrooke. Coaticook is a pretty town, the most unique little town I have been to in a long time. Agriculture is the main driving force of this town, with dairy farming as the prominent resource. Driving through most of Canada you will see farmlands as far as the eyes can see, but in this area, it is specific to dairy farming.
Before getting to the show, we stopped in at a landmark dairy farm that had a creamery, Laiterie De Coaticook. This place was HUGE and it was packed! People were coming in and out in droves for their products. This dairy farm originated in the 1940s, then grew with the times to what it is today. They offer generously sized ice creams of so many flavors, perfectly packaged cheeses of all types, and, attached to their ice cream shop was a museum of the industry, more so their history. It was a great stop to see the people and get a taste of the beautiful ice cream made with natural cream produced right there. I highly recommend the black raspberry dipped in chocolate.
Once the ice creams were eaten, we made our way to the show, Foresta Lumina. Finally! Haha
What a magical experience, guys.
Foresta Lumina is a nighttime multi-media show in the woods of Parc de la Gorge. The experience is like a story being told along a hike. The story follows the local legend of Margaret, the best way for me to describe her is as the child of the forest. As legend has it, she was free to live, play and love in the forest, talk to the fairies, but not without temptation. The backdrop to this show, like I mentioned, is in the woods. Which is absolutely beautiful, but can pose problems if you are not able to walk well. The paths are not paved though even, and there are many parts of the hike that are crazy steep, or totally in darkness, or along suspension bridges.
These shouldn’t be a deterrent, at all, unless you physically can’t perform hikes, but I have never, and I mean never, been moved with as many emotions like this show moved me in a short period of time. There were moments of sheer child-like happiness watching fairy lights flutter. Curiosity as to what was to come next. Fear walking across a long suspension cable bridge; that was lit only at the end by a portal type doorway. This bridge was above a roaring river. Playfulness making the lights dance to music. Utter peace walking through a sea of pin dot lights.
It was all just beautiful, and so well done.
Like nowhere else, I can definitely make that statement.
Some videos of the show:
If you have been, want to go or find yourself going please comment below!
xoxox
Valeria Out Loud 