Trip to Quebec | Podcast to Fall Asleep To

In this episode of The Insomnia Project, a relaxing sleep podcast for insomnia, Marco and Amanda take listeners along on a gentle conversational journey through Quebec. What begins as a reflection on a recent trip slowly unfolds into a cozy travelogue through the Eastern Townships, with stories about charming hotel stays, quiet towns, and the simple pleasures of time away.
Their travels bring them to the quaint and welcoming Auberge la Chocolatière in the Eastern Townships, where the relaxed pace of the region sets the tone for the episode. The conversation wanders through the beauty of Magog and the character of the surrounding countryside before the hosts continue on to Montreal, where they experience a much more contemporary and modern hotel stay.
As always with The Insomnia Project, the conversation drifts comfortably between topics. A memory of skiing in Aspen, Colorado surfaces along the way, and Amanda takes a surprisingly satisfying moment to clean out her purse—one of those small everyday rituals that somehow becomes oddly soothing to talk about. The result is a calm, meandering episode filled with travel memories, quiet observations, and gentle storytelling designed to help you unwind, relax, and perhaps even fall asleep.
You may find yourself drifting off somewhere between discussions of hotel rooms, small-town Quebec charm, and the simple satisfaction of organizing the contents of a purse. It’s perfect bedtime listening for anyone who enjoys relaxed conversations about everyday moments and travel memories.
Sneak peek topics in this episode include the Eastern Townships, Magog, memorable hotel stays, Montreal, Quebec travel reflections, and Bishop’s University.
If you enjoy calm conversations that wander through travel memories and everyday curiosities, press play and join us for a quiet moment designed to help you relax at the end of the day.
• Visit our website: www.theinsomniaproject.com

​Trip to Quebec

(Original airdate: Nov 21, 2021)

Marco:  Welcome to the Insomnia Project. Sit back, relax and listen as we have a calm conversation about the mundane. I'm your host, Marco Timpano and joining me is Amanda Barker.

Amanda:  I am, and we're joining you from Montreal.

Marco:  That's right. This episode's coming a little later than I expected because we've sort of been on a road trip, uh, to Quebec for work.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  And for a little bit of fun.

Amanda:  Yeah, a little bit of both. But mostly a work related trip that we made fun.

Marco:  That's true.

Amanda:  That's sort of more how I would term it.

Marco:  Yeah. We went to the eastern townships of,

Amanda:  uh, Quebec and I learned they've always been referred to as the eastern townships. And it's such a weird way to refer to anything. Not weird, but you don't hear that word a lot.

Marco:  Odd. Yeah.

Amanda:  Township, like it's just not a word you hear a lot. At least not in Canada.

Marco:  I hear it often.

Amanda:  You do?

Marco:  Tiny township. Township of this.

Amanda:  Oh, okay. Well then fair enough. But I guess I haven't.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  So, um, but that's what they're always referred to. And then I saw in front French the word canton and I'm pretty sure canton, translated at least in someone's dictionary, is township. I see and that's what they're called.

Marco:  And they were really beautiful. It's the eastern side of, I don't know, it's not even really the eastern side of Quebec.

Amanda:  It is kind of. It's sort of like the south east corner of Quebec.

Marco:  Yeah.

Marco:  But when you think Quebec stretches all the way east to New Brunswick. Right. This is not anywhere near that.

Amanda:  It does. That's why I'm saying it's the southeast, because you go north to go to New Brunswick.

Marco:  I see, I see.

Amanda:  Okay. Yeah. So, um, sort of the southeast corner. Very, very close to both Vermont and New Hampshire.

Marco:  That's right.

Amanda:  And certainly geographically speaking, looks very similar to both. Having spent time in all three places now.

Marco:  Absolutely gorgeous. I can't tell you much about, you know, the history of the name of Eastern Townships, but all the towns that we drove through were just so beautiful.

Amanda:  So beautiful. Really, really beautiful. There's, let's see how many we can list.

Marco:  Magog was gorgeous.

Amanda:  Yeah. You loved saying Magog. Uh, Waterville.

Marco:  Waterville.

Amanda:  We went through Waterville. Okay.

Marco:  We were in North Hatley.

Amanda:  We were. That's where we stayed.

Marco:  And if you saw, um, any of the videos I put up on Instagram, the stories.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  I was, I was reporting from there.

Amanda:  And there's more than one. Of course, that's North Hatley, but there's also, I believe it's St. Catherine de Hatley.

Marco:  That's right.

Amanda:  Which is where our little outdoor theater was that we found that's, you know, sitting abandoned.

Marco:  Sure. Waiting. Waiting for a new season. Uh, we went to Sherbrooke.

Amanda:  Yeah, that's not really considered the eastern township.

Marco:  Oh, I guess it's not.

Amanda:  Well, if anything, it's sort of the flagship city of the Eastern Townships, I suppose. Um, it's a lovely little city. Uh, and then do you remember the name of the town that Bishops is in? Bishop's University.

Marco:  Lennoxville.

Amanda:  Yeah. Lennox.

Marco:  We were in Lennoxville.

Amanda:  Yeah. So those are a few that we saw. There are more. Obviously.

Marco:  I, um, would come back to explore more.

Amanda:  Would you?

Marco:  I would come back to explore more and go to Vermont, I think.

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Marco:  I would like to go to Vermont

Amanda:  and go down to Burlington. You're not far from Burlington there.

Marco:  I want to go to Stowe's. Vermont.

Amanda:  Where?

Marco:  Stowe's.

Amanda:  Why?

Marco:  Ski area. I don't know, it just.

Amanda:  Is that where the Von Trapps ended up? Didn't they end up in Vermont?

Marco:  They did end up in Vermont, I guess. Stowe's is a. Definitely a ski area of Vermont, but I'VE always wanted to go. I. I don't know.

Amanda:  Really? Yeah. Uh, I've never even heard of it.

Marco:  Oh, you haven't?

Amanda:  I went to a wedding in a Vermont ski area. Maybe that's where I was a kid. So I don't remember like I was in a teen.

Marco:  I just remember growing up and hearing about Stowes, Vermont Stows.

Amanda:  Vermont.

Marco:  Really? It being sort of, you know, I, I heard about it as much as I heard about skiing and Aspen.

Amanda:  Right.

Marco:  So. Yeah. So I guess because it's on this side. This side. Right. We're closer to that than we are Aspen, but.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  You know, when you think of ski places in North America, those are some of the places that come up, at least to my mind. Like I think Whistler, Aspen stoves. Um, I'm trying to think of one.

Amanda:  I grew up hearing about a place called Sugarloaf because that was in New Brunswick.

Marco:  Sugarloaf? It's in New Brunswick?

Amanda:  Yeah, it's northern New Brunswick. It's where you go to ski.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  Uh, and then in Massachusetts, I guess people went to New Hampshire to ski. I don't really remember.

Marco:  Sure, of course. It makes sense.

Amanda:  Right? I don't know. I'm not a skier, so.

Marco:  We don't have great, great slopes in Ontario. I mean, great enough for me.

Amanda:  We pretend we do. Um, you know what? I shouldn't say this. I'm not a skier, so maybe some skier can, can call uh, my bluff on that. But the Blue Mountain area, and we, we've talked about it a lot and, and um, we do talk about it a lot. And it's a beautiful area and what they've done with it and to. It sure is really quaint and lovely and sweet and fun, but when you've skied. But it's not, it's. It's just a hill.

Marco:  I skied in Aspen once and that's all I ever need to ski ever again.

Amanda:  I was done. You skied.

Marco:  And it will probably be the last time I ever ski. Skiing is wonderful. White powder, being warm in your ski clothes and sashaying down a hill and going up the. What do you call the thing that takes you up. The ski lift.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco:  Can be really beautiful and just the vistas that you see.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  Especially in Aspen. But I'm used to the hills here in Ontario.

Amanda:  Well, we're not in Ontario right now.

Marco:  No.

Amanda:  No, we're in Quebec actually.

Marco:  And I'm not used to bigger hills. And Quebec has better, better skiing than Ontario, one could argue. Um, but I'm Not a skier like you and I went to Aspen.

Amanda:  Oh. I thought the way you phrased that made it sound like, like you, like as though I'm a great skier. For the record, I've said it already, but for the record, I've never, literally never downhills, I've cross country.

Marco:  Oh, you've never downhill skiing?

Amanda:  Never once.

Marco:  Okay, then I don't suggest starting with Aspen because Aspen was intense in a way I didn't expect. Um, but I did it and I'm glad I did it right. And it was beautiful. And the downtown Aspen is beautiful as is, um, you know, most ski resort areas.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  Now realize that my aunt lives in the Alps. I have an aunt who lives in the Alps and a lot of her nephews taught skiing on the Alps. And that's about all the English they knew was how to teach ski. Ski English is what they knew.

Amanda:  Oh, wow.

Marco:  Turn your ski, go left, snow plow, things like that. Right?

Amanda:  Snowplow.

Marco:  I don't know if, I don't know if they call it snowplow, but we call it snowplow when you try to slow down by pointing your ski tips together. Did you know that?

Amanda:  No. Once again, never downhill skied.

Marco:  I would love it if you played a downhill skier.

Amanda:  Oh my God. And I had to learn.

Marco:  Or you didn't even have to learn. You just had to be a professional downhill skier.

Amanda:  I'll tell you, I always wanted to, but my, um, sister, uh, did something to her knee once, skiing. And it. Because I danced. I just was so worried about at that age, my knees and my ankles.

Marco:  Your dance career?

Amanda:  Yeah, my illustrious dance career. And then when I realized that I really wasn't gonna become a dancer, I suppose I could have started, but at that point I was in high school and everybody. If you skied, you skied and if you didn't, you didn't. I see, right. So at that point it was just you kind of had already chosen your path.

Marco:  Fair.

Amanda:  But I'd love to start.

Marco:  But we did enjoy the drive.

Amanda:  Mhm.

Marco:  Here. And the drive in, um, in the Eastern Townships, which I didn't finish speaking about.

Amanda:  We went on a ski tangent. Tangent, downhill.

Marco:  There was. There's a couple of hills here in the Eastern Townships where we were. And, and lakes and beautiful lakes.

Amanda:  Beautiful. Lac Magog.

Marco:  Lac Magog.

Amanda:  The town's named after the lake, I believe, or the area anyway.

Marco:  And it's just beautiful. Mhm. It's just, it's just like. I mean, November probably a month ago, it would have been.

Amanda:  We've Picked a. But you know what's nice? Marco. So, okay, so we haven't. The foliage is now off the trees.

Marco:  Right.

Amanda:  But it's almost like that last leaf falls and boom, they are embracing all things Christmas.

Marco:  Yes.

Amanda:  All things holiday, all things December.

Marco:  Cheer and joy.

Amanda:  Yeah. And so there's lights everywhere. Uh, and we stayed at a very quaint in. In. There's no other word for it. I mean, it was quaint and beautiful.

Marco:  And here's the thing. Our listeners like to hear about hotel stays. For some reason. I get a lot of response.

Amanda:  I do.

Marco:  I know you do.

Amanda:  I love to hear about a hotel.

Marco:  Amanda will. Sometimes I'll find her just looking at hotels, different hotels and things we like and don't like in hotels. When we're looking for a place like you'll. You'll often.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco:  Just be looking. If there was a hotel magazine. Let me ask you this. If there was a magazine called Hotels, I haven't even finished.

Amanda:  Yes, I would.

Marco:  That just showed different hotels all over the world and you know, the different, different features they have.

Amanda:  I would love it. But.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  I don't always stay in hotels.

Marco:  It's true.

Amanda:  In some countries. I don't look to hotels. I don't want to stay in a hotel.

Marco:  Okay, but when I say hotels, I mean hotels, inns. Airbnbs. I think there's an Airbnb magazine probably.

Amanda:  I mean, wouldn't it be online? I mean, I like paper. I'm, I'm, I'm a relic of the past because I enjoy opening a paper filled magazine. I don't enjoy scrolling on a tablet for it. I don't enjoy looking on my computer for it. I want to open a magazine.

Marco:  You like the tactile nature and the glossy pics?

Amanda:  Yeah, those, those glossy picks.

Marco:  Okay, back to our hotel in North Hadley.

Amanda:  Yes, please.

Marco:  So we were looking for places to stay and I think it was the name of the hotel and how quaint it looked or the inn that settled it for us.

Amanda:  And the name of it was. Do you want me to do it?

Marco:  Go ahead.

Amanda:  Auberge la chocolatiere.

Marco:  The Chocolate Auberge.

Amanda:  Well, the Chocolate Inn.

Marco:  The Chocolate Inn, yes.

Amanda:  Auberge is in. Yeah, the Chocolate Inn. Uh, and we thought, well, we have to.

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Marco:  so I don't know if I've ever mentioned this on, on the podcast, but I love chocolate. Chocolate, for me is my weakness. One could say. I. I will say, um. And so as soon as I saw that, I was like, how can I not stay at a chocolate inn?

Amanda:  For those of you who haven't experienced this area of Quebec, let me say this. Um, if this helps. For me, it felt like a mix of Vermont. Vermont. If Vermont and northern France had a baby, it would be this area. It is very French. It is very quaint. There are very old inns, buildings. We had our first night dinner in this stone restaurant that looked like it had been the, you know, the ale house since the 1600s for weary travelers and probably had been. I mean, a lot of these buildings are that old.

Marco:  So the nice thing about our hotel is that each room was named after a different type of chocolate.

Amanda:  And we were in the truffle room. Not just the truffle room. Oh, the Citrus Truffle room. It's a very specific type of truffle.

Marco:  That's true.

Amanda:  Now, the theming kind of ended with the name. It was not made. There's some chocolates on the pillow.

Marco:  There's some chocolates. And you could purchase chocolates in the hotel in the. In lobby.

Amanda:  Indeed. I don't want to make people hungry, though. It's true. But I will say this. It had a free breakfast, which was out of this world.

Marco:  Amanda got the same thing twice. We stayed there two days. And for breakfast you had the same thing.

Amanda:  When life presents you with the perfect ham crepe, you don't ever need to say yes to anything else.

Marco:  And, uh, we got to sit and have our breakfast by a roaring fire that the innkeeper put on. And the innkeeper was joking with the guests.

Amanda:  It was wonderful. He was like, I don't want to burn you. I have other clients I want to burn. And they were all laughing.

Marco:  Everyone was laughing.

Amanda:  It was lovely. It was such a lovely place. Lovely town. Um, I'm glad that I finally got to see this area of the world because I wanted to go to university. Where you ended up teaching.

Marco:  That's right. At Bishop's.

Amanda:  At Bishop's University. And I came very, very close to choosing that school to do my degree. I didn't go there. But I, at that time, it was one of, it was one of four that I was looking at and, uh, and then it was one of three I was looking at. And then it got bumped off the list.

Marco:  It was never on my list.

Amanda:  No, it was never.

Marco:  No, it was never on my list. But I, I got to.

Amanda:  That's a lovely.

Marco:  I'm very grateful that I got to teach, uh, a workshop there. Sorry, that's my chair. Um, and the students and the staff that I encountered were wonderful. And the only staff I encountered was Dr. Linda Moore. But she's wonderful and her, her class was exceptional.

Amanda:  And her podcast, Getting lit with Linda is an exceptional podcast into Canadian viewpoint, into Canadian literature.

Marco:  It's true.

Amanda:  She's doing great things.

Marco:  Then we drove to. From the Eastern Townships, we drove to Montreal, where we find ourselves in a more modern, funky hotel.

Amanda:  This was very deliberate. Once we found the place we wanted to stay. Auberge Le Chocolatiere. Um, we decided that we, uh, wanted something a little more Montreal. A little more. Well, there's lots of versions of Montreal close. But this is a very funky, upscale contemporary. Contemporary, yes. You know, in this room that we're sitting now, there's a. A beam made of cement, which is not my favorite.

Marco:  I'm not a cement aesthetic type person.

Amanda:  No. You don't like, you don't like a good slab of cement in your bedroom?

Marco:  I don't. It just doesn't do it for me. I could, but I can appreciate how someone likes this kind of industrial feel. Mhm. And design.

Amanda:  And it's a nice change from, you know, a quaint inn from the. Whenever that was built.

Marco:  Yeah.

Amanda:  Uh, 1800s probably or something.

Marco:  Amanda destroyed the coffee machine this morning in this hotel.

Amanda:  Yeah. I hope we don't get charged because I thought, well, as I pack and. And here's something that I love to do in hotel rooms. I love to clean out my purse.

Marco:  It's true. I don't get it. Um, but I, I always leave you be when you're cleaning your purse.

Amanda:  A, uh, hotel room. M provides. It's very loud.

Marco:  Sorry. It's my chair. I'm gonna try to sit properly.

Amanda:  I'm wearing. I'm in the same chair. Not wearing. I'm sitting in the same chair. And I notice mine doesn't make that noise.

Marco:  Well, you're more still than I am.

Amanda:  I'm noticing your hand is on the chair. Is what's making that noise, not the chair itself.

Marco:  Okay.

Amanda:  Anyway, um, I thought, wouldn't it be nice while I Clean my purse, Have a nice cup of coffee.

Marco:  Can I just say, these chairs are very funky and so they're not as functional as one would want.

Amanda:  They're funk over functional.

Marco:  They're funk over funk. And we're on a. We're on a table. That's very modernist in design.

Amanda:  Yeah, it is modern. I would, Yeah, I would say maybe not even post modern, but modern.

Marco:  And if you stand up, you'll hit your head on this.

Amanda:  Low hanging, but at least it provides some light.

Marco:  True. Okay, back to your purse.

Amanda:  Yes. Back to the, uh, the importance of cleaning a purse in a hotel room. A hotel room allows you a blank slate where you can take everything out and really, truly see it for what it is and not look around your bedroom or your kitchen or whatever, wherever you would normally clean bag or purse, but actually just see it on the table or on the bed, wherever you want to do it. And it just allows you a chance to really go through all those items, go through all those receipts and group them, which is something I do especially when it's a trip where, uh, you know, it's business related.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  And, uh, which so many trips we take are. But also it allows you just take everything out. The hand sanitizer, the masks, the pens, the glasses, the lip balms, uh, paper receipts, the gloves. Um, in my case, frame glasses without glass in them because I keep the frames for acting purposes. What else isn't there? Brushes. I tend. I had four different brushes I brought with me, see. But it's not. Which. But I don't realize I have all that. And I just throw, throw another one in my purse. And then I don't think I have any when there's five right in my purse. And so it allows me to go through all of those things, wipe them down, clean them out, take everything out. And then I like to shake all the sediment on the bottom either in the sink or in the bathtub or in the shower so that I can see if there's some extra little earring, dime, um, you know, grommet, grommet. Something that go. What is this? Right in a really neutral place that I don't mind messing up a little bit.

Marco:  Sure.

Amanda:  And then I, you know, I try to clean it out a little bit. I don't leave the entire. In my case, I had an entire shortbread cookie that had turned into a fine white powder at the bottom of my purse. I'm not even ashamed to say, because when we went to Paris, Ontario, there were three lovely ladies dressed up as witches. This was Now, a month ago, it was Halloween, and they handed these adorable shortbread cookies out that look like fingers.

Marco:  There were three ladies of the town, older ladies.

Amanda:  Sounds like old timey.

Marco:  Who were dressed as sex workers, which

Amanda:  they were definitely not.

Marco:  No. Well, they could have been, but they just didn't seem.

Amanda:  I would love it if they were the sex workers of the town.

Marco:  They were in their late 60s, so

Amanda:  yes, even better, they were dressed. People in their late 60s have a lot of sex.

Marco:  Yes, certainly. And there's nothing wrong with that. But that's not what this podcast is about. These ladies were walking around dressed as witches, greeting people in the town and handing cookies.

Amanda:  And the cookies were shortbread. A lot of food. In today's episode, we should put a warning, a disclaimer. Yeah. Um, they're shortbread with an almond piece that looked like a fingernail. So it looked like a big fat finger. And I thought, how tasty. But I'm not hungry right now. I'll throw it wrapped in a napkin in my purse and I'll have it on the road later. Well, I never did. Forgot about it disintegrated. And it disintegrated like it wasn't. There was no one chunk of cookie left. It was a fine white powder. If I was at the airport, I would have been pulled over for sure. So anyway, I had to get all the shoes shortbread out of my purse and, uh, and into where it sits right now on the bottom tiles of the shower. So I'll just do a little rinse of the shower and get it out. But now. But I. I made a dollar fifty. Oh, that's from all the quarters and dimes at the bottom. Use that for coffee.

Marco:  We're packing our bags, and while Amanda finishes packing, I'm going to put this episode up and then we're going to go for bagels. Montreal style bagels. Since we've talked about food, we might as well just continued and then head back home.

Amanda:  And there's a big debate in Montreal of which is the better bagel. There's two Fairmont and Saint Viator, and we think we're on the Saint Viture. Um, my friend, I do want to

Marco:  go over to that coffee shop, too and get some good coffee.

Amanda:  What coffee shop?

Marco:  Cafe Olympico.

Amanda:  Okay.

Marco:  Yeah, we'll do both.

Amanda:  All right, we'll do that.

Marco:  That's.

Amanda:  That's.

Marco:  And that's our trip. Our work trip with a little bit of pleasure in it. We saw a good friend and now we're heading back.

Amanda:  Wish us luck. We have a long seven hour drive ahead.

Marco:  No, it's only five from Montreal.

Amanda:  Oh, really?

Marco:  It was seven to Eastern, 2 to 4pm Seems doable. That's totally doable. We're gonna listen to podcasts, we'll listen to audiobooks. M, we'll listen to some Christmas and holiday tunes.

Amanda:  Yeah.

Marco:  And that'll be our trip.

Amanda:  It's like we can't came in and it was fall, we left and it was Christmas.

Marco:  There you go. Well, whatever you are doing, we hope you have a good time doing it. Tell us about your inns, hotels and places to stay. And until the next episode, you've been listening to the Insomnia Project. This episode was recorded from Montreal, Canada

Amanda:  at Hotel 01, which is a modern, funky hotel.

Marco:  I'm your host, Marco Tympano.

Amanda:  I'm Amanda Barker.

Marco:  And we hope you were able to listen and sleep.