Daniel_Williams

Hi Fodor’s

Yesterday, it looked like today would be free for most of the day so I made a last minute decision to hop on a train and head somewhere. I’d not been to Saint Hyacinthe before, a city with a population of around 60,000 on the Montreal-Quebec City VIA Rail route and it made sense as a day trip, taking the 8:45 am train in the morning and returning on the 3:15pm. It’s only a 45 minute ride from the Gare Centrale.

The train station in Saint Hyacinthe is quite central and my first impression was quite positive with a pleasant park right by the stone ivy-clad city hall with lovely tulip blooms in front surrounded by some handsome Victorian era homes only a few minutes’ walk from the platform. From there, the main commercial street Avenue des Cascades was only a few minutes walk more and had a historic look that I found appealing. I ended up on that street near the Marché Public, which I found to be a great little market with a fromagerie, boucherie, saucisserie and pâtisserie amongst others. The quality looked quite good and the space was remarkably clean and well-presented.

Generally speaking, I quite liked the architecture of Saint-Hyacinthe with numerous lovely grey stone churches, and the homes especially along the Yamaska River on Girouard Street were quite aesthetically pleasing. A favourite park just off this street was Honoré Mercier with a balustrade and a plenty of benches amidst flowers to admire the river and homes on the opposite shore.

My favourite part of the day though was walking across the bridge on the Avenue Bourdages. While admiring the ducks sunning themselves on the rocks amidst the current by the water cascading over the small dam, I saw some action at the water’s surface that appeared on closer inspection to be finny action. Then I noticed these fins all over the place—this struck me as unusual as I’m not used to seeing fish this close to the surface. I get to another vantage point of the bridge where the light strikes the water differently and I see a fairly big silvery gray fish with multiple red-tipped fins in the shallow, clear rock-strewn water and once I see one, I start seeing this variety of fish all over the place. Their wriggling and bringing their fins out of the water in such massive numbers is like nothing I’d ever seen in my life. Turns out, speaking to a fisherman later, it’s a “carpe” which I didn’t look up but am assuming is carp in English.

Unfortunately the TripAdvisor-listed activity that appealed to me most, seeing the Daniel A. Séguin gardens, was thwarted as the gardens are not open until June, despite a misleading webpage. Glad I tried to go though as this lead to me having a longer walk than I might have otherwise along that handsome riverside Girouard Ave.

All in all, I think the town of Saint Hyacinthe itself made for a delightful day trip from Montreal, but those carp just made the day more magical than I had imagined.

Happy travels

Daniel

Daniel_Williams

Avenue des Cascades area

Yamaska River area teeming with carp

Balustrade overlooking river

Marché Public de Saint Hyacinthe