An Afternoon at a Nordic Spa

Today's blog post is written by Ruth for a change....

Yesterday, Lindsey and I had a mother daughter day and spent the afternoon relaxing at a nordic spa in Quebec.

A while back Lindsey found a special on Groupon for 4 hours at a nordic spa and a 4 course dinner at a restaurant nearby for a total of $80 CAD ($62 USD) for the two of us and asked if I would like to join her for the day away, of course I said YES!

The spa was in the town of Sainte Adele, Quebec north of Montreal which was about a two and a half hour drive from her place here in Ottawa. It was a tad chilly that morning and threatening either rain or snow or both. It actually ended up spitting rain a little bit and we also saw a few light snow flurries but overall ended up being a decent day.

We took off around 9:30am with a stop along the way, leaving Kevin back at home to look after the grandkids, mostly just Sadie because Cameron was in school for most of the day. The drive was nice but many of the trees have lost most of their leaves, although there were spots where we still saw some nice colours.

Scenery along the way.

Arrived at the spa!

We arrived at 1pm just in time for our appointment. At this nordic spa there are two hot pools that are outside and two dry saunas, one cold pool and one steam room. They also have chairs outside with heaters above them and another quiet room inside and you have use of this for four hours or more if it isn't busy. The spa can only handle a total of 40 people. If you want treatments such as massages over and above the pools and saunas then there are extra charges which were way more than what we wanted to pay. They supply towels and for an extra change bath robes but Lindsey brought towels for each of us because she said the bath robes get cold and wet, in hindsight though we should have brought two towels each, one dry one for at the end when you come out of the shower.

Relaxing.

Ruth and Lindsey.

We enjoyed relaxing in the pools and then moving to the dry sauna and the steam room. We did try relaxing once on the lounge chairs outside but the above heaters didn't seem to be working. Overall we enjoyed our time there but we happy that we only paid $20 each instead of their full price which I believe to be $40 per person because the Groupon for just the spa was a 2 for one special.

Lindsey.

Pretty area.

After dressing we wandered along the river at the bottom of the property which is a pretty area, then we headed off to the restaurant in town that seems to have some kind of deal with the spa. The restaurant was Chez Milot. Our 4 course meal was delicious. They were able to accommodate our gluten free diet with no problem. A few items had to be altered but that was it. Instead of soup they brought us salads. For our appetizers they pointed out the two items that we could have and we picked one of each and shared.

Lindsey had some kind of oka cheese dish which came with a slice of baked oka cheese and some small baked/roasted potatoes and a little dish of something that looked a little like a salsa and I had Escargots Provencal (snails!) both dishes were fabulous.

My dinner.

Lindsey and her dinner.

For our main course Lindsey had flank steak with a pepper sauce and I had some kind of chicken breast dish with a mustard sauce but I think both sauces were changed to one that was gluten free and was a multi use one again it was delicious and melted in our mouths. For dessert we both had the creme bruele. The meal also came with tea and coffee. All this for $20 each! What a deal. We thought it was a super deal and that is was just because of the Groupon coupon but after we realized that they serve this special Sunday to Thursday between 5 and 7pm and Friday and Saturday between 5 and 6pm. You can't go wrong. All we had to do was leave a tip because it was all looked after with the Groupon deal that Lindsey had purchased.

Then we had the long drive home in the dark but thankfully it wasn't raining or snowing and we luckily didn't come across and deer or moose on the way.

What a wonderful day we had together.

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