Good afternoon all!
I got up to more piddling from the sky this morning so I lazed around until it stopped at about 9:30 AM and then rode the 50-odd km into Winnipeg.
The Fort Garry is a beautiful old building in mint condition - plus they are shooting a Hallmark Christmas Special movie here right now so there are lights, cameras and action all over the danged place.
The hotel was built in 1911-13 as one of the series of CPR (Can Pacific RR) hotels in key cities sprinkled across the country. They are all magnificent structures and have the sort of presence that invites historical movie productions and romantic weekend getaways. However, the rooms are rather small and are wired like summer cottages with nowhere near enough receptacles for array of rechargeable electronics that most people tote around these days. There are definitely no signs admonishing guests to remove their muddy work boots before entering.
Sylvia is parked nicely out of the way in the underground parking garage and you can see the sort of ornate style of the Fort Garry visible even in the stairwell which you can see through the window behind the bike.
As you can see, she is secure with a disc lock in recognition of the fact that until a decade ago, Winnipeg had more vehicle thefts
per capita than any other city in North America.
And so, the outward bound stage of my trip has ended with a final mileage of 1857.5 km from home to here. I haven’t worked it out but I think that I averaged about 50-54 mpig which is pretty good considering the rapid pace I was making.
After a bite of lunch in the Fort Garry’s very nice bar (see below), I went for a walk up the street to look around the provincial legislature building which is famously topped with a larger than life-size gilded statue of a boy brandishing a torch.
The statue has quite a history - here is a linky to an article on it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Boy_(Manitoba)
The statue is imaginatively known as “The Golden Boy”....
As per Kiltman’s suggestion, I continued my walk to the beautiful Winnipeg Union Station building which is just a few meters from the Fort Garry. The station is the passenger terminal for VIA Rail Canada and is surmounted by a magnificent dome - well worth a look.
Here is a view from inside Union Station.
Anyhow, tomorrow, it’s on with my meetings - so I’ll wrap this up until Friday when I set off for more adventures on the way home.
Pete