Blogs from Québec City, Quebec, Canada, North America

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North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City September 2nd 2023

This is our last port before disembarking in Montreal. The last two days have been a bit of an adventure. Two nights ago I had a double order of escargot. They didn’t taste as good as usual but I ate them any. Later in the piano bar I started coughing and hiccups and then threw up in my wine glass. Account to Marilyn I was very discreet. I sat out the set and went to my cabin at the break. During the night all hell broke loose. I won’t go into details. My throat was very sore and I had a headache. First thing in the morning I went to sick bay, had a Covid test and was negative. I am fully boosted but all night I was wondering what would happen if I had to ... read more
Quebec City

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 29th 2022

This morning we’ve arranged to do a tour of the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac. We meet our guide, Thomas, who tells us that he’s a French travelling salesman, and that he’s 112 years old. We’re perhaps struggling a bit with that last bit, but at least he’s dressed the part. We’re told that the Chateau is named after Louis de Buade de Frontenac who was a much loved Governor General of New France in the late seventeenth century. It was originally built by the Canadian Pacific Railways as part of the company’s grand railways hotel program which includes such other icons as the Banff Springs Hotel, Chateau Lake Louise and the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park. The logic was that if they built a railway, the passengers were more likely to travel ... read more
Joan of Arc Garden
Quebec Parliament building
Quebec Parliament building

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 28th 2022

This morning’s itinerary is a bus trip out to Montmorency Falls which we read tumble into the St Lawrence River about 10 kms downstream of Quebec City. The bus stops right outside the door of our hotel, but that’s about where the convenience ends. The driver doesn’t accept credit cards or give change, which seems to us like a great way of extracting large quantities of cash from unsuspecting tourists. The seats aren’t padded, and if there are any shock absorbers on this vehicle they passed their use by date several decades ago. Issy had one of her shakes for breakfast - a powder that she spent a long time mixing with water. She could have saved herself a lot of effort is she’d just eaten the powder and let the bus do the rest of ... read more
Staircase up the side of Montmorency Falls
Montmorency Falls
Suspension Bridge, Montmorency Falls

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 27th 2022

I’m up early to head to the Citadelle to watch the changing of the guard. Well at least that was the plan until I looked out the window at rain and grey skies, so instead we spend the morning doing very little. The sun eventually appears, but Issy’s decided on a rest day so I head off to the Citadelle alone. There seem to be a lot of soldiers around; I’m stopped at the gate and told that it’s still an active military base. It seems therefore that if I want to see it I need to take a tour. I’m told that if I try to wander around by myself they’ll think I’m a spy, and that mightn’t end well. We’re told that there‘d been some sort of fortification on this site since the early ... read more
Place Royal, Lower Quebec
Guarding the Citadelle
Chateau Frontenac from the Citadelle

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 26th 2022

I spend ten minutes or so doing a couple of Duolingo lessons in French so I can kid myself I’m not lying when I tell the locals I’ve tried to learn their language. It's then off for a wander along Rue Saint Jean into Old Quebec. It’s insanely cute, and just like Michael said - “a trip to Europe without crossing the pond”. The Rue’s closed off to cars and is wall to wall street cafes, most of them packed with Sunday morning diners. I could well believe I was in Paris. The City Hall and other similar public buildings have got an extra French look and feel to them with their green copper rooves. I stroll along the massive deck in front of the even more massive Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac overlooking the St Lawrence ... read more
Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac
Quebec City Walls
City Hall, Old Quebec

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 25th 2022

We get a late night message from a mysterious stranger asking if he can meet us for breakfast to show us “something really cool”. Perhaps unsurprisingly we don’t usually accept invitations like these, but this sounds intriguing, and anyway, if he’s going to try to murder us or do something else shifty, surely he wouldn’t do it in broad daylight in front of a whole bunch of people in the hotel restaurant. He pulls a small box discretely from his pocket, and we wait with bated breath as he opens it. Cocaine or heroin perhaps? That’s not what it looks like, although that said I’m not sure either of us would know a line of cocaine (it’s slightly concerning that I know that cocaine comes in “lines” - too much late night TV perhaps) if it ... read more

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City June 15th 2022

Shelley and I decided to leave our campsite a day early to make it home before the bad weather arrived. It was predicted that there would be some high winds and thunderstorms coming into our region and we really didn't want to drive the RV through that. The traffic through Quebec City was mostly avoided as we remained north on the 40 and then the 50 highway towards Gatineau. This was the best decision really. We enjoyed our drive back, but we'd been behind the wheel a lot in the last two weeks and the anticipation of getting home was nice. Everything was just as we left it. Several neighbours came over to greet us and hear about our trip. We couldn't believe the amount of stuff we were bringing back with us! We made so ... read more

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City October 15th 2021

The harbour was our starting point overlooking the St.Lawrence River the skies were full of cloud and a pinkish grey so we weren’t expecting a fabulous sunset but at the end of the tour we returned where to see the grain silos transformed. They usually serve as the backdrop to Aurora Borealis, an impressive work that illuminates the grain silos with the colours of the northern lights, creating a fascinating luminous sculpture but in October the silos are illuminated pink for Breast Cancer Awareness. Another interesting tour with https://www.heygo.com/sam-bearded-tour-guide... read more

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City September 25th 2021

Quebec through the eyes of two heygo guides. Patrick, who usually guides in Banff was on a road trip of Eastern Canada - he spent time during different parts of the day to show us around Quebec’s interesting and picturesque locations. As the only French-speaking region of North America, Quebec is unlike anywhere else on the continent. The majority of the population consists of French-Canadians, the descendants of 17th century French settlers who have resisted centuries of pressure to assimilate into Anglo society. The city’s splendid views of the surrounding landscape and unique character were noted as early as 1842 during a visit by Charles Dickens, who called Quebec the “Gibraltar of North Amerca.” The city has three principal districts: Upper Town, Lower Town, and St. Roch. We visited both upper & lower town during the ... read more




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