We wake up around 7 and start to pack our bags, eat breakfast. We do the last of our laundry so we don’t have to do any back home. Everything seems to fit and at 9.30 Tim goes to get the car from the parking garage. We hope there aren’t any surprises there.
When Tim steps out he’s greeted by snow and a freezing wind. It’s a short walk to the garage, but the entrance is hidden inside a closed mall. He tries to remember where the car was, after some use of the keys and following the noise Tim finds the car and tries to get out. But there seem to be some problem with the payment system so it takes 10 minutes before its his turn. All is well and back at the apartment we load up the car and get on the road.
We planned to go for a hike, but it’s really cold as we head out of the city and nobody wants to go outside for pleasure today. So Tim get’s off the highway and we go for a coffee. There we reschedule and look for some interesting things closer by.
Since we were driving on the highway of the Valley of Forts, we go to the closest at Chambly. Fort Chambly was taken during the 1812 war with the US and was not really used afterwards. Tim takes some pictures of the fort, the lake and the river. It’s extremely cold outside with an ice cold wind. Olga and kids stay warm in the car.
Next is the Canadian Railway Museum. We buy tickets online, but the museum seems to be closed. We can play in a small room and look at the rails and some rusty locomotives outside. The kids are freezing.
After a stroll over the rails, we want to take our loss and head back to our car, when we pass a bigger building. It turns out to be the main exhibition building and we can see a dozen of old trains. Some are unique, like a classroom train that visited far away villages so kids could still go to school. It has a special cabin for the teacher.
We also visit a train where we can post mail, platform 3/4 and there is a large miniature railway. We easily spend some hours strolling around. It’s nice not to be in a rush and to be inside.
We end our trip with sushi, already at 16 to try to adjust to the European time zone. We return our car, check-in our luggage and relax at our gate. Our plane leaves at 20:30, we arrive in Paris at 8:30, and have to drive three more hours home.
