More Words Than Pictures

There was a lot of rain in the forecast for today. Going for a hike was out of the question, but going for a little road trip sounded exciting. Both Ruth and I have read all of Louise Penny's mystery books and we wanted to visit her hometown of Knowlton (changed to Lac-Brome when 7 towns merged). Both of us have been there before, but we were anxious to see the new café in the basement of the bookstore that she now owns.

We could see glimpses of mountains as we headed in a southeasterly direction.

No trip to Quebec is complete without a visit to a fromagerie. This one, Fromagerie des Cantons, was a new-to-us cheese factory. It seems that every fromagerie has its specialties. This one had something we hadn't seen before: individual fondue cheese in a glass jar. Guess what we are having for supper?

Ruth had a hankering for apples from an orchard. After some misinterpretations of signs, we found a lovely roadside stand.

These are bags of apples for deer hunting. 😞

It was just a small market, but very well done. There were apple varieties that none of us had heard of including Sweet Sixteen and Aurora.

We all got to taste a slice of Sweet Sixteen, and how could you resist an apple with that name? It was described to us as tasting like licorice. All of us loved the juiciness and taste of the apple, but we did not taste licorice.

It was raining in Knowlton. I left my camera in the car. Here is where my pictures end

Louise Penny's café, Café Three Pines was lovelier than any photos we'd seen of it. It had the feel of the bistro in her books - a fireplace at each end of the room and bustling with folks chatting and reading and waiting for their coffees and croissants. Ruth went upstairs to look for some books, Dave was bold and took his camera outside into the rainy day looking for pictures, and Ted and I treated ourselves to a decaf and we split an eclair filled with whipped cream. Yum.

And, just to add to the feel of the culture of Knowlton, we had an interesting chat with a lady from Jay Peak in New York. She was sorry she could not take her gun over the border because she would have liked to use it on a relative in Montreal. Hmmmm..... maybe the theme of Louise Penny's next book?