While it would have been possible to drive straight home from Montreal, our advanced planning detected a cluster of attractions several hours to the east in the neighborhood of Lake Memphremagog. We duly divided our trip home into two days with an overnight stay in the truly delightful and surprisingly lively town of Magog at the northern tip of the lake.

Arriving in the area by mid-afternoon enabled us to take a guided tour of the Abbaye de Saint-Benoit-du-Lac, a working monastery of the Benedictine order. Our family formed the entirety of the English-speaking tour so we had a very personalized experience. Our guide told us about the renowned cheese and cider making that fund the abbey, showed us the architectural features of the church and other buildings, and shared details of monastic life. The lakeside setting is beautiful, and we could easily see how it inspires reflection and contemplation. Although we hadn’t planned on a long visit, we decided to stay later to attend Vespers and were glad we did. The organ playing was superb and the prayers were carried out in Gregorian chant. The experience reminded Nick of his visit many years ago to the Abbaye de Saint Wandrille in France, which coincidentally is the parent monastery to this one.

After a fruitful visit to the abbey gift shop, we drove to Magog where we had a quick dinner and short walk by the water to catch the end last rays of the setting sun. Lake Memphremagog stretches some 30 miles north to south straddling the US-Canadian border and is home to rumors of its own mythic serpent (named Memphre), perhaps a relative of the better-known Nessie in Scotland. We were quite taken by the beauty of the lake nestled under the surrounding mountains.

The reason for our haste at dinner was a final engagement for the evening in the town of Coaticook, some 45 minutes away. The town there is home to a 50m-deep gorge adorned with hiking trails and boasting the longest pedestrian suspension bridge in North America. These attractions were apparently not drawing enough visitors so about 5 years ago the park decided to put in an after-dark illuminated experience. The result (called Foresta Lumina) is rather spectacular, amounting to about 1.5 miles of multimedia magic and storytelling. The journey along the trail transports visitors through a series of chapters created through light, sound, and projection, each one beautiful and somewhat mystical, yet hard to capture in photographs or words. Each of us had our own interpretation but we all felt like we were in a storybook experience of some kind. The illusion was broken at times by the fact that we were sharing it with hundreds of other visitors, but in the end it didn’t really matter.

The next day was unfortunately our last of the trip, but we managed to fit in a few more activities along the way. The first was a 4-course breakfast at our B&B (Au Saut du Lit in Magog), whose bright decoration was inspired by the colors of Provence. The meal vied for the best breakfast of the whole trip, starting with smoothies served in champagne flutes and capped off with healthful breakfast cookies that we had packaged for the road. We even got to sample some of the Abbey’s products during the cheese course.

After breakfast, Ben and Susannah had a run/walk (respectively) at a local park that features a 2 km boardwalk over wetlands with views of Mont Orford in the background. Meanwhile, Nick and Rowan packed up the car and then had a little time to relax in the B&B garden.

Not quite ready to say goodbye to Canada, we hit two more stops right before the border: a ring of massive granite standing stones in the town of Stanstead, and the Tim Horton’s we had promised Rowan we would visit before leaving Canada (conveniently, Stanstead had one of those too).

South of the border once more, we stopped for lunch in Newport Vermont and discovered that the southern end of Lake Memphremagog is also quite beautiful. Chances are we will be back to this area again before too long!