Today was a day of exploring Montreal and doing a bit of shopping. The campground we’re staying at is right next to the river shuttle that runs from Longueuil to Old Montreal. While waiting in line, a squirrel butted in front, climbed up on a little step stool and begged for its morning Cheetos from the lady in the ticket booth.

We had chocolate croissants at a cafe and Ruth indulged in a latte macchiato before continuing on our rather lengthy 19km walking trip today. Nearby, a Scottish marching band wasn’t quite ready, but the bagpipes were getting warmed up.

Pierres Saint-Denis is Ruth’s favourite bead store and we spent a good hour selecting beads, tools and accessories. We only need to spend another $200 and then Ruth gets the 30% member discount for life. The owner was amazingly helpful and gave us great advice on some more advanced techniques.

Next up was supposed to be a chocolate supply store that has a vast selection of molds, packaging and, of course, chocolate. That would have to wait a bit, because we got side-tracked at Maison de l’Astronomie, a fabulous shop featuring pretty much anything you could ever want in telescopes and related accessories. Henri-Julien Chartrand enlightened us on the various telescopes and assured us that he would only sell us something when we knew what we were buying. Martin was given homework to watch some YouTube videos and read an instruction manual and was told that there would be a test afterwards. Ruth is already slightly worried about how we’re going to fit a telescope in our van. 😉

We finally made it to Chocolate-Chocolate and were overwhelmed by the number of different chocolate molds and packaging available. Fair warning to neighbours and friends – six different molds and a scraper ended up in our basket and so there will be lots of chocolate making to come this fall.

Now hungry like bears, we headed back towards Old Montreal with a stop at Schwartz’s Deli for Montreal Smoked Meat sandwiches. It is always a pleasure to eat there, although this time there wasn’t a huge lineup as there usually is. This was great for us, because otherwise we would have missed the last ferry back to our campground.

No map today.