View from our accommodation
Alice in our kitchen/living areaOn Saturday, August 1st, Alice and her friend Cara picked me up at Laurel's house in Leduc, and we headed for the International Airport close by. (Helge had taken me to Laurel's the night before. Laurel had invited us and Lee and Marian for Friday night supper. It was great to have some quality visiting time with them. I was sorry to hear about cousin John's health issues.) We left the airport at 10:00 a.m. and arrived in Montreal at 3:45 p.m. Our travelling companion was a very pleasant teen who was returning home to St. Saveur after having visited his father in Edmonton.
Alice had arranged a Hertz rent-a-car through AMA to be picked up at the airport. The shocker was that the price was more than double what AMA had quoted. About 30% was tax: GST, PST, municipal tax, airport tax. Insurance was a huge chunk, about $400. Since we had not rented in eons we did not realize that we could have arranged insurance for a rental through our regular provider or that some credit card companies cover rental insurance. (We will have to look into this.)
Our rental vehicle was a small but cute blue Toyota Yaris. I took the wheel, whilst Alice navigated. (We had played these roles many times in the past, so this felt comfortable for both of us.) Our first challenge was getting out of Montreal. It took a bit of running around in circles, but we eventually made it. We headed east on Highway 40 on the northern side of the St. Lawrence. It was a beautiful drive. One of the exits along this highway was to Trois Riviere. We decided not to stop anywhere as we might have trouble getting back to the #40 and we wanted to reach our destination before dark. We arrived at Beaupre just as darkness was falling. The exit we were to take to Mont St. Anne to our accommodation was blocked by construction. We went straight through the intersection and turned around, taking the exit from the opposite direction. We arrived safely at our destination between 8 and 9 in the evening. After checking in, we ordered a late supper at the on site restaurant. Our pizza had too much cheese but it was good to eat after so many hours without any food or water.
2 comments:
I've come by via Vanessa's blog and am so glad to read that your summer has been filled with good times. You are so busy in your local community - there's so much going on, especially with music. What a great place to live in!
I'm looking forward to hearing more about Quebec! It's my favourite place in Canada!! What a lot of reading between the lines there is with rental cars! We also waive the extra insurance, using our credit card provider instead and have found Budget to be more reasonable price wise. I saved $100+ via AMA when I was in Halifax in June instead of booking on the Budget website. I'm not impressed when there is so much variation within a company - and I have to make umpteen calls to get the best deal. The variation in price between the companies is another whole issue - and I'll leave it at that!
You look marvelous after all you've gone through in the last months! Enjoy autumn!!
I didn't mean to be so long winded - I hope you do like comments!
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