Day 7 - Saint Francois-Du-Lac to Trois Rivieres

2007 La Route Verte, Quebec

Day 7 - August 28, 2007, Tuesday

Saint Francois du Lac to Trois Rivieres

On the whole, Quebecois breakfasts are not too different from what I am used to in California, a nice muffin, some good coffee. Well ok, a fruit parfait, with chocolate and maple syrup on the side is not normal, but it sure was good..  Although I don't recall the cost it wasn't too expensive.  We stopped in a little breakfast place in Pierreville right on the main road about 3 quarters of a mile from the river.

After breakfast we hopped back on the bikes for our trip to the riverside town of Trois Rivieres (Three Rivers).  You have to be careful on the local road out of Pierreville for truck traffic.  So when you see the bike sign pointing you away from highway 132; follow the signs.  It was not only safer but far quieter and made for a nice early morning ride.  This area takes you through some beautiful corn fields but keep an eye out for large corn harvesters that tend to drive on the roads.

Our first goal for the day was the small river town Nicolete.  Although the town is not that large there is a large Police Academy in town as well as a large girls catholic school so there seemed to be a lot of people on the street.  Our first stop of course was to the tourist office, where we met ; oh let's call her Evette.  We asked to have her locate a internet cafe so that we could check up on some emails.  She sent us, no she walked us over to a small shop called Mudigo, where the owner (oh I don't remember her name) made us some tea and let us use a computer and internet connection.  The shop was a mix of herbal tea, clothing, computers, and other items.

After a few minutes on the computer, I notice a package delivered to the shop but on closer inspection I find out it's actually her lunch.  Not only did it look good but smelled good as well.  It hadn't been too long since breakfast and we had only completed about 12 miles, but the food looked so good and hearty I asked her to point us to the restaurant.  She said it wasn't really a restaurant but she provided the directions (in French of course).

So after Dave finished up his cyber errands we followed her instructions to :"go back to the center of town past the tourist office, past the Catholic high school, make a right about two streets down, go down a street and when see the large old house go around the back and just knock on the door."  " She doesn't have a menu", she said "Just go and tell her you want a lunch; a lunch to go."
  

Well after following her instructions we did find the back of this old (looked like a Victorian style house, complete with a widows walk), and as we walked in we step right into a kitchen with a huge cast iron stove.  She was busy preparing other lunches and I put up two fingers and just said "duex".  After a few minutes she had packed up a sizeable lunch of vegetable soup and crackers, a vegetable and beef stew, fresh corn, roll, and date walnut bread for after.  Hell, just the stew itself was a meal.  All that for $5.00 Canadian.

We took the lunch in bags and proceeded to a park down near the Saint-Francois river.  It was fabulous the food, the view, the slow pace of the trip.  Everything was coming together.


After a brief nap in the park it was back on the bikes and back to route verte.  Due to the small footprint of the town in no time at all were found the linear park that lies alongside the forest just to the south of town.  It would have been a straight shot to the town of St. Gregoire but due to the heavy truck traffic on highway 132  (see map below) trying to cross the bridge to Trois Rivieres the bike route detours making the 5 mile route a more scenic route of about 13 miles to the town.  It wasn't all bad however because the rolling farms are pleasure to cycle through.  The big question though would be "can we pedal over the bridge?"


The Laviolette Bridge is the only bridge crossing between Montreal and Quebec City a distance of about 160 miles.  After all the maps; both paper and online, I don't recall any of them mentioning that you couldn't.  Well we finally got to the riverside, it was obvious, there was no way we were going to bike over that bridge.  However we found that you could take a van outfitted with bike racks and have them shuttle you over the St. Lawrence River.  So we pulled into the ever present Tourist Office in Becancour  and booked a ride over to the other side.  The service is free but we gave the driver a tip. 

Resources: Entre Flueve et Riviere  (English)
                    Ville de Nicolet 


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45 miles
330 cummulative miles

Day 6 Acton Vale to Saint-Francois-du-Lac 

Day 8 Rest Day in Trois Rivieres