Blogs from Québec City, Quebec, Canada, North America - page 6

Walking Tour #3 That is the opening line from a song in “White Christmas” when they are all on the train headed for Vermont. I title my blog that for today because we woke up to a few inches of snow and a continuing snow storm. We are headed to the lower town today at the base of the old city. The Funicular will save us the walk down and up the hill. I am especially appreciative of the funicular today because of the snow and brutal winds. It was 25 degrees at 11 and not sing of getting any warmer any time soon. We thought we were prepared for the cold, but we were wrong. The winds off the river made it seem even colder, much colder than the winds off the Hudson back home. ... read more

The long days of train rides had caught up to us and today we slept in until noon. We had very little on our agenda today, in fact the only thing was an early dinner on the waterfront. After we got out of bed, I finished my blog entry for the day before and we showered and got ready to walk to dinner. The original plan was to take the funicular to lower down then walk through the small streets and on to Café du Monde. Since it was Christmas Day the funicular was closed so instead we walked down a few flights of stairs. We passed a very cute street in lower town fully decorated for Noel. As we walked down the narrow hillside it reminded me of a street in Lyon. When I went ... read more

Flights were dirt cheap from Pittsburgh. This was a pretty low season - the miserable weather had begun but was no different than Pittsburgh, really; however, the wintery landscape, with the toboggan slide near the Chateau and thigh deep snow on the wonderful Plains of Abraham, nor the views of the wide, frozen St. Lawrence River, nor the comparative coziness of the charming restaurants that look perfect for wool sweaters and brandy by the fire, had not yet begun. Still, we strolled around town leisurely (it's the perfect walking city), without worrying about the cold, and didn't have to share the streets with many tourists. It's also pretty good place to run, and the impressive staircases from the river to the park are a nice challenge. In the end, I'll always feel pain for the bearded ... read more

Today we left Moncton, New Brunswick for Quebec. We were so sad to leave the Maritimes, our adopted home for the last 23 days. Words cannot express how much we loved our time there. Once in Quebec, we passed the municipality of St.-Louis-du-Ha!-Ha!, the only town in the world with two exclamation points in its name. Ha-ha is an archaic French word for an unexpected obstacle or abruptly ending path. We loved the name almost as much as we loved Hill O' Chips Road in St. John's. We stopped at the Chutes de la Chaudière waterfalls in Lévis, just a couple of minutes from Quebec City. The 115 foot high falls are breathtaking, falling into a basin of undulating red, veined granite, the water emptying into the mighty St. Lawrence River. Chaudiere means "boiler", an apt ... read more

Bonjour à tous, Une correction pour hier où je vous disais que Montpellier était capitale du Vermont c'est Albany. Les chiffres de ce voyage. 26 États traversés. Exactement 22 243 km - 2250 de moins qu'en 2014, pour une consommation d'essence de 6,9 litres, avec une voiture qui fait 280 cv, la preuve que je roule pépère. Pour ce blog; À ce jour 3264 visites pour 2174 en 2015. 60364 mots pour 45587 en 2015. 2096 photos pour 1573 en 2015. Je savais en préparant ce voyage, qu'il serait bien différent de celui de l'an dernier dans l'ouest Canadien, et ce fut le cas. Différent, que j'allais traverser sur des milliers de km, des zones ultras urbanisées, bien moins sauvages que le Yukon , ou l'Alaska, et le plaisir serait autre. La première grosse différence le ... read more