Advertisement
P1020693
Narrow streets of Old Town Quebec CityWe left Miramichi for the Quebec/Ontario "corridor" - the main population areas of Eastern Canada which includes 4 major cities - Québec City and Montreal in the province of Québec, Ottawa and Toronto in Ontario.
The train from Miramichi to Québec City took almost 11 hours overnight. This was our first experience of sleeping on the train in economy class, and it was not pretty. Although Charlie slept like a baby, I did not sleep at all. We even had empty seats next to us, but there was no way to get comfortable. In Economy Class you also don’t get to use the dining car. It’s the snack bar only – snacks, sandwiches and a few frozen foods they heat up.
First stop Québec City. Québec City is a beautiful old city on the St. Lawrence River atop the cliffs of Cap Diamant. It is North America’s only walled city north of Mexico City. Even though exhausted from our all-night train, we dropped off our suitcases and took a free walking tour of the Old Town (a World Heritage site) and were entertained by a delightful guide – one of the best
P1020702
Gate through the Old Wall, Quebec City we’ve experienced. Québec City was founded for the French by Samuel Champlain (remember him from history class?) in 1608. Québec City has several “oldest on the continent” sites: first parish church, first museum, first girls school, oldest hospital and oldest newspaper, and most of these still exist. We were staying in “Basse Ville” – Old Lower Town and had to hike up the cliffs to “Haute Ville” – Old Upper Town to meet the tour. We passed through the old wall and through narrow streets, past the provincial parliament (Assembleée Nationale) where debate is almost entirely in French) and past Le Chateau Frontenac, supposedly the most photographed hotel in the world. The next day we took the bus out to the Basilica Shrine of St. Anne de Beaupré, north of Québec City, for Sunday Mass. It’s a beautiful shrine dedicated to St. Ann, the mother of Mary. Not sure why the “de Beaupré” designation. We caught the early bus back and returned to the area near the Chateau to visit the excavations of Champlain’s second fort and chateau, but this time we took the funicular up the hill. Well worth the $6C. The excavations were really interesting, showing many
artifacts, as well as examples of everyday life under both the French and English governors (and another use for our Parks Canada pass). We went back to Parliament Building in the old section (Québec City is the capital of the Province of Québec) to take some flower pictures I think I can use on my website. We also went by the train station to check out how much it would take to upgrade to sleeper class for our 34 hour trip from Toronto to Winnipeg. Sold! It’s not in the budget, but will be well worth it.
Monday we moved on by train to Montreal, a trip of only 3 hours. Before leaving we discovered the joys of the Business Lounge in the train station. We have “Canrail System Extra Passes” (Senior version) for this journey across Canada. We paid a little more for it because it’s more flexible than the regular pass. It entitles us to 7 “legs” on our trip plus a couple of stopovers and last minute changes. It also entitles us to use the Business Lounge even though we are traveling in Economy Class. The problem is that is a pretty recent perk, and the
folks checking your tickets in the lounge (you know, in order to keep the riff-raff economy passengers out) haven’t heard of it yet. Luckily we printed out the page where it explains that it’s one of our perks, but we have to argue with them each time. But we get a nice place to wait for the train, comfy seats and free newspapers, coffee, tea, sodas or juices.
In Montreal we had our first really bad experience with Airbnb. After dozens of good stays all over the world, I guess it was time. Although the place itself was fine – we had the whole place to ourselves, a washer and dryer, kitchen, and it was clean - the outside of the apartment building and hallway were trashy and other amenities were less than advertised and expected for a self-contained apartment (no glasses, dishes, silverware, dish towels – just a couple of bowls and wooden forks). But the worst part was the noise the first night we were there. People upstairs would leave, slam the door, run down the stairs, slam the front door. This went on over and over all through the night, and we started wondering what was
P1020724
St. Kateri Tekakwitha, Lily of the Mohawks going on up there. We complained to the Airbnb host, and he didn’t answer us. Then we filed a complaint with Airbnb – the first time we’ve had to do that. The noise was gone the next 3 days, but the trash remained. Long story short, we did get a small refund and gave the host a very negative review – 3 out of 5. Not all was bad, however. Except for the 4 or 5 old apartment buildings around us (looked like homes converted into student housing) the neighborhood was okay, and we discovered a nice cheap little hole in the wall Pizza/Greek place a block away. The owners were from Greece and very friendly, and this started our affair with Greek food on this trip through Canada.
After a rainy first day, it’s really turned warm in Montreal. Before our trip I researched average temps for each city, and the average temp for most places was mid-60s. It’s 81 today. All my clothes have long sleeves. Sigh. After a bad night with the noise upstairs, we again went on a free walking tour. It’s a great way to get an overview of what to do in a
P1020729
St. Hagrid on the right city. Of course, it’s not really free. You’re expected to tip the guide at the end – but still less expensive than a commercial tour. Old Montreal is not as interesting as Old Quebec (they seem to have torn down much of it in a fit of urban renewal), but it is still an interesting area. Our friends from PEI, Jamie and Connie McNeill, told us that there were 2 things we must try in Montreal – smoked meat and bagels. Smoked meat is similar to pastrami or corned beef, but not quite. Schwartz’s is the oldest and most famous place for smoked meat, so we headed there by bus after our tour – another hole in the wall. Yum. It did not disappoint. Even the French fries were homemade and good. We left stuffed, but still stopped for an ice cream. Probably a little over the top. As we walked down the street it got more crowded and we realized there was some kind of festival going on - the Mural festival. We didn’t stay for the music but we did see some interesting murals, including one of those trompe l'oeil ones on the sidewalk. See pix below. We
P1020794
Part of Montreal Underground - piece of Berlin Wall took a long walk home to work off the smoked meat and ice cream.
ViaRail (Canada’s national railroad) has special online-only sales every Tuesday. We checked and found we could book Sleeper Class (berths) for our leg from Jasper to Vancouver for about ½ what we paid for the upgrade from Toronto to Winnipeg, and we jumped on it. Wednesday we went to the botanical gardens looking for more flower photos. It's on the grounds of the former Olympic Park, built for the 1976 summer olympics. We didn’t do much else in Toronto. Nothing grabbed our attention, and Thursday we really needed a catch-up day to book more places, pay bills and catch up on my website changes. In retrospect, we should have spent more time in Québec City, a much more interesting city.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 10; qc: 25; dbt: 0.0282s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
