here’s where I spent the night last night – in a lorry-weighing station about 15 miles south of Trois Rivieres. And had it not been for the workmen going past with strimmers at about 07:30, I would still be asleep there now. I was really comfortable here.
It was crowded with trucks when I arrived last night but apart from the gardeners, it was as deserted as the Mary Celeste.
On my brief passage by here on the motorway on my first journey here, I first saw this bridge – the Pont Laviolette – but couldn’t stop to take a photo.
When I was here in 2010 I tried my best to find a good view of the bridge to photograph it but with not much luck. But this year, on the north bank of the river on the edge of Trois Rivieres there’s a little park here and there’s a place here where there’s a lovely view of the bridge.
First appearances can often be deceptive, and in Trois Rivieres that is certainly the case.
When I came here first, I wasn’t all that impressed but I spent a good couple of hours wandering around the city and that changed my point of view completely. If you would like to go on my little misguided tour of the city, you need to follow this link and you can form your own opinions.
This building is quite worthy of note, because it represents an irony that has gone completely over the heads of everyone around here.
Not too far from here is a chapel and the priest here back in the mid 19th Century wanted to enlarge it. he bought a pile of stone to bring across here when the river was frozen but the river never froze. So when he decided to cancel his plans – and almost immediately, the river froze over.
This was classed as a miracle and the crowds began to flock here, and so they built a bigger church – the irony being totally lost upon them.
How about this for an impressive construction? It’s the Tracel de cap Rouge, a latticework viaduct built at the turn of the 20th Century to carry the railway line over the valley here.
The valley around here is also of interest, for it’s the site of the first French colony in North America, although the colony didn’t last all that long.
After my vicissitudes of last year, we finally made it up to the top of the Plains of Abraham on the outskirts of the city of Quebec.
The battlefield here is ringed with old cannons and field guns from various wars and Strawberry Moose took the opportunity for a photo call with a cannon that had been recovered from the river, presumably from a sunken ship.
It was not much longer after this that I had a couple of encounters with the farces of law and order. Consequently I decided to leave the city and head for the hills. But if you want to see the city of Quebec, you can follow this link.
These are just a few photos and a brief recap of my day’s travels. For a fuller account, and to see more photos, you need to follow this link.
