A day off.

Today was my day off work, and apart from a morning appointment at the Bank for Richard and I to discuss our financial situation, we really had nothing else urgent to do, so when he suggested we go to one of our favourite places for lunch I immediately agreed. We needed to get out of the city and just try to de-stress for a few hours. It was a perfect day weather-wise, as it has been all this week after a terrible rainy weekend. So we drove to Amhurstberg under a cloudless blue sky and warm, but not hot, temperatures (around 75F) with just a light breeze. The town of Amhurstberg is about 30 mins. from Windsor and is on the Detroit River and just about where the river widens up and becomes Lake Erie! The restaurant we like is in an old building with view of the river and beautiful parkland. Since we've been going there the restaurant has changed ownership three times! When we first discovered this place, ten years ago, the restaurant was part of a bookshop! (The bookshop was at the back, the restaurant at the front with views to the river) We loved it for the serenity, the service and the food, the bookshop was an added bonus. After a few years the owners sold the place and the restaurant became more of a burger/fries/fried chicken type of menu and the bookshop part of it was gone! We were disapointed but gave it a chance, and it wasn't too bad. The setting was still the same. You could still sit outside on the deck to eat and the views were always wonderful...but something was missing....they had noisy music in the background and a TV with sports on all the time...okay for another setting, but not this one! We also noticed that the beautiful garden which had surrounded the deck, was allowed to get shabby and overgrown. We hadn't been back for a year.....this Summer we haven't been out that much because of work and Richard's surgery so this was our first trip to the restaurant, and boy were we in for a pleasant surprise! New owners have restored the restaurant and the outside. It's now an Italian place with beautiful murals on the walls of the restaurant, new tiled floors etc, and the outside deck has been restored with a lovely low key garden complete with a soothing fountain. Add to this some lovely laid back music quietly playing in the background, really good Italian food, red wine and gorgeous weather, made for a perfect setting for a lazy lunch on an end of Summer day! (The photo shows the view from our table...and yes the grass is really that green because of the three days of rain last weekend!)