Blogs from Quebec, Canada, North America - page 2

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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 » Sherbrooke July 25th 2023

Wall art en masse When you are viewing this blog entry we can strongly recommend that you click on the photos to enlarge them. The pictures come out a lot better when they are enlarged than they do when viewed in the size they appear in the blog. On our way back to Montreal we stopped for a few hours in the city Sherbrooke. We went there to see Trompe-l'œil art because we had heard that they have plenty of such artworks throughout the city. I let Wikipedia explain what Trompe-l'œil art is: "Trompe-l'œil is an artistic term for the highly realistic optical illusion of three-dimensional space and objects on a two-dimensional surface. Trompe l'œil, which is most often associated with painting, tricks the viewer into perceiving painted objects or spaces as real. Forced perspective is ... read more
Trompe-l'œil art
Is it possible to walk into the painting?
Illusion of a dusty road leading into the painting.

North America » Canada » Quebec » Québec City July 23rd 2023

Are there ghosts in Château Frontenac? If so, we could get help from Scooby-Doo When we left Ottawa we headed northeast towards Quebec. It was a bit too far for us to drive all the way in one day so we stopped for the night in a motel, Motel Normandie in Louiseville. It was an awesome place. Staying there felt like getting warped back in time to the 1950-ies. We absolutely love when we find accommodation that not only gives us a place to sleep but also throws in an unusual experience in the package. Later in this blog entry we will write about yet another place that gave us just that. But that is for later. Now we are going to write about what we saw and did in Quebec City. Quebec City => Historic ... read more
House
Anonymouse
Umbrellas

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal July 19th 2023

Leonard Cohen rules (and nobody cares about Barbie) Our first stop in Canada was the city Montreal. Montreal is named after the mountain Mount Royal. We felt that we had to visit Mount Royal now that we were in the city. Both because we wanted to see the views from there and because the way we see things a visit to Montreal is not complete without visiting the mountain the city is named after. Mount Royal We walked up to Mount Royal. The mountain is accessible on foot from downtown Montreal thanks to there being walking paths with stairs all the way up to the top. The views at the top were awesome. You can see what it looked like if you watch the panorama at the top of this page. But for some strange reason ... read more
Olympic Games related monument
A-ha
Fountain

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal July 6th 2023

We awake to a flood of emails from Booking.com about our upcoming stay at a riad in Fes in Morocco. It seems there’s a problem with the credit card we’ve used to secure the booking. Hmmm. This smells a bit fishy. But no, it seems it’s all legitimate - we go into Booking.com’s own app, and all the same messages are in there too, so surely they must be legit. We follow the link within the app, and are eventually asked to pay via PayPal … to an email address. Huh? That’s a new one on us, how do we do that we ask? We’re very quickly (just a bit too quickly in hindsight) sent an explanatory YouTube video. We make the payment, and send a screenshot of the confirmation to the email address as requested. ... read more
St Enfant Jesus Catholic Church
Street art, Boulevard St Laurent
Street art, Boulevard St Laurent

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal July 5th 2023

It’s warm, humid …. and sunny, which is in stark contrast to yesterday’s near apocalyptic thunderstorm “event”. We haven’t noticed any reports of people getting washed away in the deluge, so maybe that was just par for the course for the good citizens of Montreal … or more likely the reports were all in French and we’re just oblivious to the whole disaster. Issy’s feeling a bit sleep deprived so I set off on my own to scale Mount Royal, after which the city’s named. Our neighbourhood sure is hipster-ville - colourful murals on every available vertical surface (plus some that look like they probably weren’t supposed to be available), and wall to wall street cafes. The mountain is in the centre of the massive Mount Royal Park, a sprawling 280 hectares of lush green deciduous ... read more
Street art, Saint Laurent Boulevarde
Kondiaronk Belvedere
Mount Royal Chalet

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal July 4th 2023

Issy decides on a day off from touring so I head off on my own. It’s overcast, humid and stormy looking. First stop is the iconic Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. I read that this is “regarded as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture”, and earlier this year it was named by one notable worldwide travellers’ publication as “the sixth most beautiful building in the world” (Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia was ranked first, which is a bit hard to argue with based on the limited buildings we’ve seen in our travels). And it seems that people are noticing. Apparently somewhere around 11 million of them visit it every year, making it “one of the most visited monuments in North America”. The interior is indeed spectacular; the sombre blue tones of just about everything are particularly striking. I read ... read more
The demolition site next to our apartment
Bank of Montreal
Rue Saint Paul East

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal July 3rd 2023

It’s an early start as Issy, Scott and I make our way up the flat, straight and not particularly exciting highway back to Calgary. The lack of excitement is perhaps made even more so by the fact that this is the third time we’ve driven the route in the last forty eight hours. Thanks Troy (refer previous post) …. I did warn you we’d never let you live this down ….. We bid our farewells to Scott, who’s on his way back to Oz via Los Angeles. Issy and I are on our way to Montreal where we’ll be spending a couple of days to break up our trip across to Europe. It’s warm, humid and stormy looking when we arrive, in stark contrast to the dry heat of Alberta. We visited Quebec City last year, ... read more

North America » Canada » Quebec » Montréal » Pointe Claire May 27th 2023

14:05 hrs: We made the drive from Ottawa to the airport here in Pointe Claire. This is where Shelley was born! We pre-paid for airport parking, so it was as easy as simply driving onto the assigned lot, park the car, grab our luggage, and step to the shuttle stop to board a large bus shuttle which brought us to the air terminal. Once we arrived, we found our check in kiosk and had to wait just a little bit until they opened. We are SUPER early but that means no stress. We’re good with that. While we were waiting for them to open up the queue, we tested out our AirTags that my sister Kristine, and my Mom bought for us for the trip. They work great! We are able to see how far away ... read more
Board
Lunsj (Lunch)
Our flight

North America » Canada » Quebec » Dolbeau-Mistassini August 14th 2022

(NB: I have no clue where Dolbeau-Mistassini is, but can't seem to manage to delete it.) THE BASICS The second day in Perce, we explored the alternate route to the top of the hill entering Perce from the north: the 17% grade would have put a real strain on the RV! On our third day, we drove an hour north to Gaspe (another two-syllable pronunciation) and east from there to the Forillon National Park. We found a nice spot back in Gaspe for a late lunch. A long day’s drive to The Pirate Motel campground in Cap Chat. I will say a lot about the roads in the next part of this blog. Then another drive, to Rimouski, which we remembered fondly from our last trip here eight years ago. It was John’s birthday, and we ... read more




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