I keep the photo at the top of the page from December 14, 2021 because I really like it.
We haven’t traveled anywhere since September 16, 2021, when we went to Cleveland to see a 1001 painting and a Caravaggio. So we decided on a trip to see paintings in Canada. The trip would be to Detroit on Tuesday Oct. 4th, Toronto on Wed. Oct 5th, Ottawa on Thur. Oct 6th, Montreal on Fri. Oct. 7th, Rochester, NY on Sat. Oct 8th, and then home on Sun. Oct 9th. We picked up the rental car Mon. Oct. 3rd in the afternoon.
Tuesday Oct. 4th Detroit Institute of Arts – DIA
We were up early on Tuesday and were on the road before 7:30 AM because we lose an hour going to the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA). We have been to the DIA twice in 2013 and 2015, and we have seen 7 of the 9 1001 paintings at the DIA. The last two 1001 have never been on display whenever I’ve checked, enough of my whining. We had never used the mapping system in a rental car; we always used my phone’s Google Maps. So we learned something knew by linking the Google maps on my phone to the screen in the car; it took a bit of trial and error. I selected a route to the Detroit Institute of Arts without tolls. This route was about 290 miles and it took about 5 hours. We arrived at the museum around 1:30 PM EST. The DIA is a great museum. There was a fantastic Vincent van Gogh exhibition. There were at least 60 paintings, and 43 of them were painted from 1888-1890. It seems he was almost painting frantically, because he committed suicide on July 29, 1890. A museum person who was asking people how they liked the exhibit told Sue that it took five years to organize the van Gogh exhibit.
I won’t bore you with a list of the DIA paintings we were looking for, and what we saw. The two links below have photos of the van Gogh exhibition and the DIA collection, and too many of my comments. There are many photos because I take pictures of paintings by the artists who have paintings on one of the lists I/we keep.
We were at the DIA for about three hours. Sue decided that we would stay the night in Windsor, CA because 1 US dollar = 1.38 Canadian dollar. On Saturday before our trip Canada dropped the Covid reporting requirement, so we didn’t have to complete the on-line form three days before entry. I’m sure I would have messed that up. We only had to tell them we were vaccinated, why we were visiting and show him our new Passport cards instead of the actual passports. It was actually very easy.
Sue made all the motel/hotel reservations. The motel in Windsor was very nice. For dinner we walked to a bar about two blocks from the motel. Being in Canada we of course had poutine, a chicken wrap, and a beer. After dinner Sue wanted an ice cream cone, this was a pleasure trip after all. I got to finish here cone because she ordered two scoops at the Baskin-Robbins. Then it was the short walk back to the motel. We watched some baseball on TV before turning in.
Wednesday Oct. 5th Toronto Art Gallery of Ontario
We had breakfast at the motel and were off to Toronto to visit the Art Gallery of Ontario. The drive from Windsor to Toronto was about 240 miles and it took about 4.5~5 hours. One note on driving in Canada. We were on freeways where the speed limit varies from 100 km/h to 120 km/h, and just about everyone is going 10-15 km/h faster. I would try not to be the lead car in a line. There were always a few drivers going much faster, but we didn’t see anyone stopped for speeding.
There are two 1001 paintings at this museum. We saw one when we visited in 2015. The second 1001 painting was not on display, and it isn’t even shown as part of the museum’s online collection. I had contacted the museum and arranged a special visit to see this painting. Have I mentioned how nice Canadians are? The Art Gallery of Ontario doesn’t have parking, so we used a garage near the museum. There isn’t a lot of room in these garages, but we managed. When we got to the museum I called the young lady I had been in contact with and she met us in the lobby. She took us down into the storage are where the 1001 painting was set up on a table for us to view it. The museum photographer was also there, and he took photos of us with the painting, “Habitants Sleighing” by Cornelius Krieghoff; we had counted this as seen because the Museum has about 18 similar Krieghoff paintings on display. They just never had this one on display. There was also another fellow there who writes stories for the museum, and he wants to email us some questions, I guess he may write up something about our visit. We thanked them again for allowing us to see this painting. We visited the rest of the museum. We discovered a substitute painting “Mettis Running Buffalo” by Paul Kane #717 for a 1001 painting by this artist that is in a private collection; “The Buffalo Hunt” by Paul Kane. It was a good day.
After our museum visit we picked up our car and drove to the Holiday Inn Downtown with parking, another tight underground garage. Sue found our kind of restaurant, the Beerbistro. We started with the Pretzel with mustard sauce. Then we had sausages, sauerkraut, and German potato salad. For dessert we had apple strudel with ice cream. Of course there was beer, I had my favorite Delirium Tremens and Sue had a De Koninck. It was all very good. Again we watched some baseball on TV before turning in.
Toronto Art Gallery of Ontario
Thursday Oct. 6th Ottawa Canadian War Museum & National Gallery ofF Canads
Breakfast at the Holiday Inn and then we hit the road for Ottawa around 9:00 AM. The drive to Ottawa was 280 mi, so again 4.5-5 hrs. The first stop was the Canadian War Museum. This museum has two paintings and one is on display. I contacted the museum and those nice Canadians arranged for us to see the second painting in storage. Both of the Ottawa museums had onsite parking. We had a 2:00 PM appointment to meet a young lady in the lobby. She was waiting in the lobby and spotted us, so she walked up to us before I could call her office phone. She was very nice and led us down into the storage room to show us the painting “Burial at Sea” by Thomas Beament #718. Our guide even took our picture with the painting hanging on the storage rack. She led up back upstairs where we thanked her again for her help. We then went into the museum that is arranged differently from the typical art museum. First the museum is laid out as a pathway that curves through the space, and the displays are in a chronological order. The museum has a lot of smaller military equipment, newspapers from the period, mannequins with uniforms, and much more “stuff”. There are many photographs and a few paintings. Sue found the second painting “Invasion Pattern Normandy” by Eric Aldwinckle #719 high up a wall pretty far back along the display. After looking around a bit longer we retrieved the car and set of for the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, it was only about a 10 min. drive away.
The National Gallery of Canada has two 1001 paintings, but only one is on display. The one not on display is “Death of General Wolfe” (the 1770 version) by Benjamin West. When I contacted the museum about seeing this painting, the explained that the painting had been on display recently is very fragile and it will be in conservation for a while. We can’t win them all. But to make up for that we did get to see one of Sue’s favorites, “The Mechanic” by Fernand Léger #720. This museum has many paintings by artists that we/I follow. On this trip we saw three 1001 paintings and one substitute for a painting in a private collection, this brings our total of the 1001 seen to 720. We checked into our hotel and rested a bit before we went downstairs for dinner in the hotel. We started with a cheese plate and then short-rib sliders, and beer of course. Then it was back up to the room to watch TV, there wasn’t any baseball tonight. I don’t recall what we watched.
Ottawa National Gallery of Canada
Friday Oct. 7th Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
We had breakfast at the hotel and were off to Montreal around 9:00 AM. This was a short trip, 125 miles about 2 hrs. We started out at the Olympic Park that hosted the 1976 Olympics. We pulled into the parking lot. When we got to the parking ticket machine before we could buy a ticket a guy walked up and gave us his ticket because he were leaving, the ticket was good until 11:00 PM. We thanked him. We did the same thing for a couple from Vancouver, CA. when we left.
We walked around the park taking photos. We went inside to see the Olympic pool, where people were swimming laps. The car that takes people up to the top of the tower wasn’t operating. Our next stop was the gift shop where I bought a pin from the 1976 Olympics. Then it was off to the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. There aren’t any 1001 paintings there, but it is an art museum. There is another museum, the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Arts, but we had run out of steam so we checked into our hotel and rested a bit before going out for dinner. We found a bar a few blocks from the hotel, we had a pizza and a couple of beers as you will see in the photo. After dinner we went out to find an ice cream cone, and that went okay. Going back to the hotel was another matter. Google maps kept taking us in the wrong way, but we didn’t notice until we didn’t know which way to turn. I don’t know what went wrong, but it was probably my mistake. Another nice Canadian noticed that we were lost and gave us direction that got us back to the hotel. There was baseball to watch tonight.
Saturday Oct. 8th
We were off at our usual time, about 9:00 AM. The plan was drive to Rochester, NY to go to a restaurant that Sue’s college roommate husband had recommended. He was from Rochester, and was back there for a reunion. Rochester is about 535 mi. after a late lunch we would go to church in Rochester at 4:00 PM. Once again I picked a route without tolls. Google Maps can be something. After a short time on freeways getting out of Montreal we ended up on two lane rural highways with a speed limit of 50 mph or lower. Fortunately there were not many towns, and no tolls. The US Border Control consisted of one guy in a booth. It went well, but it was kind of strange. When got to Rochester around 3:30 PM that didn’t leave enough time for lunch before church. So we went got to St. Monica just a little early. After mass we went to the Sultan Cuisine Bakery and Restaurant. It is a Lebanese restaurant. We started with a Greek salad, humus with pita bread, chicken and beef shawarma then for dessert we had baklava. It was all very good. There was no beer as I was still driving.
We were back on the road after our early dinner. We were back on interstate 90, only later did I realize I hadn’t selected no tolls when I restarted Maps. Hey I’m old. We had not made any reservations because we were just going to go until we had had enough. We figured we could find a motel along the interstate. That didn’t go well. The first motel we tried was sold out. The next one we tried did have a room, but that was about it. The room was fine and it did have a TV, but there were no local stations. Everything was pay per view. We have accounts on Prime TV, but there wasn’t a way to enter the user name or password. We were tired and so we went to bed earlier than usual.
Sunday Oct. 9th Home
We were up and out around 8:00 AM. We were going to stop at a McDonalds for breakfast. We saw the sign along the interstate showing the restaurants including McDonald’s at the next exit, so we got off. Unfortunately we couldn’t find the McDonald’s, so we got back on the interstate and only got off when we could see the McDonald’s sign. After several exits we saw the Golden Arches, so we got off, found the restaurant and pulled into the parking lot. There was a VERY long line at the drive-thru. I parked the car and got out only to find that the doors were locked! Our guess was that they didn’t have enough staff to have the front part open. So we were off again, and we did eventually find a McDonald’s that was open. I went in and got our food and we ate on the road. We made it home around 2:00 PM. In total we drove about 2,100 miles, it was a very successful art trip.
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