Blogs from Québec City, Quebec, Canada, North America - page 3

First, a few facts of life in Quebec: 1) The croissants here are TOTALLY different than anything by the same name I. Have. Ever. Had. Just saying... 2) Folks from Quebec put maple syrup on anything and everything. 3) Québécois can build any building on any elevation, put stairs on it, and call it done! And it is! We slept in this morning, so didn’t finish breakfast until after 10:30. Luckily all we had to do to start our day was walk across the plaza and board our Hop On, Hop Off ride for today. Now for the confession of the day—I MIGHT be earphone challenged...probably not, but possibly. Our plan was to ride our red open-topped bus around Quebec City the whole circle of town and then get off and wander the rest of the ... read more

WOW! For those of you who have an upcoming trip to Quebec City...listen to the advice you hear and read to bring good walking (hill climbing) shoes! You will need them. We had a great day but we can attest to the fact that there are LOTS of steps and steep grades here. Add the funicular to your “cheat sheet” for when you go all the way down the bluff to the oldest part of the city. Be thrilled to pay the $3.50 per person to ride it back up to the level where the Frontenac Hotel lies. Your feet will be thankful. I promise. Mark it down. Really. Quebec City has a very European feel to it to us, and French is certainly the first language here, but everyone we met today was more than ... read more

2 sea days make it necessary to work at having fun, without overeating and drinking. The weather was cool and rainy so everyone was inside clogging up all the venues. Dinner at one of the Specialty Restaurants, now that was a nice experience! Kate had her first ever crab cake sans onions, it was tres bien , we are in Quebec ,or Keebeck as some are referring to it , so I am practicing. Our friends were having a burger with us on the pool deck , Richard came up with a piece of steel from a grille cleaning brush in his burg. That resulted in the 4 of us being treated to 2 nights in the Specialty Restaurants of our choice. About $800 worth of ooops. Looking forward to the gastronom. Mostly just visiting with ... read more

Sadly, our QC hotel does not include breakfast as our hotel in Montreal did. That forced us to forage down the street cafes, for edibles. I managed to get by each day with coffee and a chocolate croissant. As you can see, I suffered miserably. Our guide was Marie, a retired teacher. She said that 96% of the population speaks French as the mother tongue, 1.6% claim English as their mother tongue (though nearly everyone is at least bi-lingual), with the rest divided among other languages. The French/English "social divide" seems pronounced in QC than it was in Montreal; though much of what we saw in our few days in Quebec was good-natured ribbing between Francophones and Anglophones, it seems likely that the teasing may also disguise a deeper chasm. Here are some highlights of Marie's ... read more

After posting the last blog I discovered that I had totally forgot to address our time in Quebec. Talk about brain dead. So this is my supplemental to rectify that oversight. We were in Quebec for 2 days, 3 nights. We enjoyed the city immensely, smaller and more quaint than Montreal. But we were still frustrated by the whole shroud of French that existed, especially in the signage, both public and private. But fortunately language didn't end up being an issue at all. On our first day (Saturday) we toured around the city, visited the few antique shops we could find (didn't find many and NO train shops!) and had lunch at a pretty good restaurant. On Sunday we thought we'd take advantage of what we hoped would be an off day to take one of ... read more