Thursday — Saguenay

Wednesday night dinner was in the casual Terrace Cafe which is a wonderful place to eat.  It is where most people eat breakfast or lunch, but at night it is generally fairly empty as people opt for the specialty dining rooms or the Grand Dining Room.  But the Terrace is set with white table clothes, and the buffet choices are endless.  There is always fresh sushi, exotic cold cuts, and fine cheeses for appetizers as well as soups and salads — they serve a great Caesar salad and you can get all the anchovies you want.  Main courses included grilled steaks, grilled fish, lobster, and an endless variety of carved meats.  Vegetables abound.  And the wines are the same as all the other dining rooms.

So in the Terrace we feasted on the daily specials — local Quebecois cheeses and cold cuts to start with a Quebec pork casserole dish for a main (with a few grilled shrimp added on for variety).

Today we dock at Saguenay which is not actually a city but a conglomeration of eight cities/town, the best known of which is probably Chicoutomi.  We dock in the town of La Baie at Baie de Ha!Ha!  That’s the real name of the bay.  Saguenay is located on the Saguaeny River, a tributary of the St Lawrence.

At the cruise terminal we were enthusiastically greeted by locals in period costume and treated to a slice of local blueberry pie (delicious!).  We sawed wood with lumbermen.  The welcome was wonderful.  Kudos to Saguenay!

Then we did the two circuits of the frequent hop-on hop-off buses which all had local people telling about the stops and another local at each stop to provide more information.  All very well done!

We visited the Pulperie Museum where the highlight was the house of slightly eccentric local painter Arthur Villenueve).  The house in entirely within the museum building.  Sadly no pictures allowed, but I copied one from the web to show what it like.  He artistically painted his entire house, inside and out.

And we visited the Cathedral, the RAF Bagotville Air Force Museum, and the Pyramid de Ha! Ha!, a monument to the 1996 flood, entirely made out of yield signs.  Weird yet impressive.

I’ll let pictures tell the story.  (CLICK TO ENLARGE)  Tomorrow is a sea-day (well, actually a river day) with no port calls, so the next posting won’t be until Saturday at the earliest.  Ciao for now!