i made my way slowly down princess street thinking all the while of a breakfast i had had in a courtyard behind an absolutely fantastic bakery afew years back. i stopped at a light and a young couple approached me asking if i knew of anyplace nearby where they could sit down and have a slow breakfast. they were wearing motorcycle leathers and so after i had told them of my own breakfast quest, i asked them about their travels. it seems that they had been out to p.e.i. and were on their way back. we talked a bit about the similarities and differences between bicycle and motorcycle touring and made our way down the street to where i believed the breakfast that all three of us craved could be found. sure enough we found it.
pan chancho bakery has not only extraordinary breads and pastries but tucked away out back it has a lovely little courtyard with fluttering umbrellas to shade you and the many little birds who hop around your feet picking up the crumbs that slip from your fingers. here’s pan chancho from the outside . . .
cyclists who might be planning to stop by pan chancho and hoover down some of their tasties should know that they recommend you take your bike up the left side of the building and park it next to the trellissed fence that surrounds the outdoor cafe. hey, have a wander down the breakfast menu to see what delights await you!! breakfast was a slow and yummy affair and it was an easy hour and a bit later, after reading some more of my book that i left to get back on my bike and cruise along the harbour, and also to have a look at some of the older homes in kingston.
kingston has a tremendous amount of history in it. its strategic location being at the head of the st. lawrence river has imbued much of its history with a military edge. forts have been and gone on the site that is now kingston. fort henry which is a major tourist attraction, was also declared a unesco world heritage site. if you would like to tour the fort but can’t see your way to getting to kingston to do so then have a wander through this page and its many links.
to start my meandering morning, i turned right onto king street and passed by some lovely old limestone structures including the kingston brewing company.
if it had been later in the day, i would have spent some money and time in here. i made my way instead down to the well-kept path that skirts the edge of kingston’s waterfront. out on the water there was a regatta underway, 
while in the bandshell, a group was engaged in tai chi. the lapping of the water and the massive puffy white clouds on the horizon were the perfect backdrop to the tranquillity of this beautifully kept portion of kingston’s downtown.
i stopped for a while and took the waterfront in and then decided to move on in search of some of kingston’s older homes. it seems that the waterfront area is chock-a-block with lovely old homes and i guess that makes sense as the older part of the city would have been located near to the harbour. these two homes stood out for me as perfect examples of kingston limestone architecture . . .
reluctantly i turned north and found an east-west route along highway 33 (a.k.a. bath road) that looked set to take me out of town and perhaps link up with the loyalist parkway. the road i was on was very wide and smooth in direct counterpoint to most of kingston’s roads . . . unexpectedly, i rode past two prisons . . . millhaven and collins bay. in addition to these two facilities, there are other prisons in kingston which like so many canadian cities is dependant on government employees to sustain the local economy.
highway 33 eventually turns into loyalist parkway which i’ll be honest was more of a happy coincidence than planning on my part. i had no idea if hwy 33 turned into loyalist parkway but hey - if it happens, i’ll take it. i had hoped to find this road on my way in to kingston but had elected to take the safer more direct highway 2 route. as it is, all things come to he (or she) who waits apparently. how do you know you’re on the loyalist parkway? why you pass through these gates
that make you feel like you’re going onto someone’s private (and very expensive) property. her majesty queen elizabeth officially opened the parkway in 1984 at these gates.among the many lovely features of the parkway is a dedicated bike path that runs alongside the roadway. like many such pathways it is covered with road detritus, gravel washout from driveways, sand patches and whatever else, but it takes you a bit off the road and allows you to step up the pace and slow it down as suits you. the views from the pathway of the lake,
the parklands, and of the many lovely homes alongside it are really lovely. i passed numerous club riders (going the other way!) and got friendly waves and waved in return. there is a little bit of a fraternity among cyclists and most of the time a wave provides that nice little connection that reminds you that you’re not alone.cycling can be a lonely pastime. i think that’s part of its appeal. like running, ultimately it’s you versus you. you get yourself wherever you are going through your own physical and mental exertion. i found walls at thirty and fourty kilometres that appeared each and every day. i don’t know why they were there but they appeared and in my mind i heard the words stop this is silly. i ignored it but why then - thirty and fourty kilometres isn’t that much of a distance - eventually the legs and cardio system are chugging along independent of your thoughts and you achieve a lovely zen state of being present in the machinery of the bike but also independent of it and thinking whatever thoughts pass through or observing whatever you are passing by.
i had it in my mind to turn north at some point and hook up again with highway 2 to take me back through napanee and on into belleville. as i passed the intersection that i thought might be the one, i noticed a woman eating beside a bike to which was attached a trailer. i pulled up about a hundred feet down the road and studied my map as i ate a snack and sure enough up she pulled. we had a nice chat about her journey (montreal to toronto) and about some of her adventures. she told me she had been down to twenty dollars when she took 5 dollars into the casino at gananoque which she managed to turn into 240 dollars!! amazing. i was laughing so hard. then she asked me about my journey and i told her about biking to the black dog pottery in kingston. well of course she’s a pottery collector as well and had to see what i bought. she laughed so loudly when she saw the little thumb indents in the wine cups i bought. she totally understood the whole thing about “lip” on a drinking vessel and took some still shots and a video of me explaining all of this. i’m guessing it’s on a blog somewhere out there.
her route was following the waterfront trail route so she would be heading through picton, taking the ferry etc. i didn’t think that that route would work for me to get to belleville but now that i look at the map i see that i could have followed that route and seen more of the world and probably had much more fun! next time. i took one last pic of the lake and instead of following the route, i turned up a road that was made of concrete. it stretched for kilometer after kilometer looking for all the world like an endless airport runway. eventually i found myself at the intersection with highway 2 and made my way back into napanee.
here’s the main drag of napanee . . .
here’s a spot that i stopped at for an energy bar and water . . .
there goes the toronto to montreal train . . .
i noticed bits of purple loosestrife along the way and maybe i’ll step up on the soapbox for a bit about this much maligned plant. i am not a conservationist but i will say that i think it is a beautiful plant.
i remember a few years ago when it took on something of the twentieth century role of the giant hogweed, in that it was “threatening to take over entire areas” and yet strangely, it hasn’t done that at all. it has more or less blended in. it is very unusual to see massive concentrations of purple loosestrife. now if that is because of the efforts of unsung heroes who spend their nights and days plucking it out of the ground then i am indebted to them. otherwise, i think that it is a lovely plant that adds a nice splash of colour to the greens and yellows and browns of most culverts and swamps i see.i eventually made it into belleville and spent some time riding around the downtown district where i did some shopping for my kids and had a look to see if there was much that i had missed on my previous visit. not much actually. so i made my way down to the beautiful park down by the bay bridge . . .
i was here last year when my wife ran a 10k run - her first actually - and i walked through this park then . . .
it is such a quiet place and the riding along smooth carefully paved pathways is spectacular after the rough roads of the day. when i finally arrived at the hotel, i checked my gps watch and it showed that i had travelled over 100 kilometres this day! . . .
i think that serious cyclists consider this a “cheap century”. as an amateur fifty-one year old cyclist i was and am proud that i was able to do it. i had lots left in the tank as well so that was a good step for me to know that i can do it for future trips. tonight though i’m lying low.
tomorrow belleville to cobourg.
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