Quebec City

There is something about taking the railroad to a place that grants a man a new perspective on the world.  Indeed, as the miles clack-a-clack by, and the landscape gradually changes, a mood most felicitous overcame me; for it was to Quebec that we now travelled on our trusty ol’ Iron Horse. 

The first thing someone visiting Quebec should know is that they speak French.  Perhaps the second should be that while all Quebecoise speak English, they are all so convinced that they are French that they refuse to do so.  Laura and I do not speak French very well.  Here endeth the lesson.

Actually that is a bit of an exaggeration, most were friendly, welcoming, and glad we had a go at speaking their native tongue, and so we got by.  Indeed, in the late 18^th century the Quebec provincial legislature spent three days and nights debating the topic of an official language for the province.  The British had relatively recently captured French Canadian colonies in the peace settlement following the Seven Years War, and the issue was laced with political significance.  Would the colonists be forcibly nationalised as Britons?  What would be the provincial religion?  How would the legacy of the croissant survive?  And so, after 72 hours of slogging it out, the momentous decision that people could speak what they wanted was reached.  Almost as much a waste of time as me writing this paragraph.  That said, it is easy to see the European influence on the region.  The streets are narrow and winding, with café tables spilling out onto the cobbles and lashings of street performers well and truly spilled over them too.

Proceeding to the hostel after an eight hour train ride we were greeted by Steeve (lots of ‘E’s’) possibly the nicest man in the city.   Our room, tastefully adorned with a huge circus-themed mural, was complimented by plastic coverings on both mattress and pillows, presumably in response to a series of heavy droolers doing the rounds on the east coast. Nevertheless, it was clean enough, had an awesome wardrobe that I could hide in to scare Laura, and was only a place to lay our heads.

As we have done in most of our stops, the first day was a walking day around the city to get bearings and, as Dad would say, get a feel for the place.  In so doing we happened upon Notre Dame Cathedral a beautiful, gold laced building, with an alter so glorious that for a moment you forget it was paid for by dirty Catholic money used to buy their way into heaven.  We also accidentally attached ourselves to a tour group from a church in the mid-west who had brought their own nun to read, and who eventually gave us sufficient odd looks for us to figure out the hint and move on.  The centre of Old Quebec covers a surprisingly small area, so nearly everywhere we looked into we found ourselves facing up to some monument, or historically significant house.  The skyline is dominated by the Hotel Frontenac, a goliath of a structure that, via some crafty circumnavigation, took us to the boardwalk (left) which carries walkers up and along the river by way of 312 steps (we counted to check) to the highest point in the city.  From here we headed into the Citadel, still an operational military base, to learn about stuff, and stuff was learned.

It being wet, we headed to the Musee de la Civilisation, which was obviously a museum and so not prone to lending itself to in depth recollections in prose.  Nonetheless, it was an excellent Rome exhibition with a tour given by one of the only people I’ve ever known never to pause for a thought, or an ‘um’ or even a breath.  She really knew her stuff.  I also had a lot of fun in the science section, even after Laura scornfully told me it was for children, and that she would be in the ‘Discovering Quebec’ exhibit.  I still had a lot of fun pushing buttons, and learning things about physicists my sister would scoff at.  Even Coops was impressed to learn from a graph that by 2012 women will be running the 800m faster than men.  Using graphs, 90% of the time you can prove 60% of things all the time.  That evening we supped in a humble restaurant called Le Hobbit upon a simple yet elegant pasta dish with spicy lamb sausage and a host of other flavours. 

Monday saw us open our account with savoury crepes and coffee before heading to Place de l’Assemblee Nationale where we were took a tour of Quebec’s parliament building.  As breakfast had been late that day, lunch was merely a chocolate crème pastry followed by a walk down to harbour area, around which was Place Royale.  Aside from having a very pretty church, it is also host to the old hanging spot, and also to this fun to play on pirate ship.  I started something by climbing on it because no sooner had I got down than an old man was scaling the rigging.  For just a moment it could have been Seannair...  We ate at Poisson d’Avril which gave us massive bowls of steaming mussels and fries and then we went to a local brewery, Barhevie, for a couple of beers.

(For those of you wondering why the sudden obsession with chronicling my food, I say this.  It is not a sudden obsession.  But actually, it is a tip of the hat to my Nanny who emailed me recently to say we both must be the size of buses because of how much we seem to eat.  We don’t starve.)

With the price of tourism harbour cruises on the rise in response to the recent decimation of the fleet following the great seagull crapathon of ’09, we were advised to take the regular commuter ferry to Levis (there should be an accent in there).  Steeeevee looked shocked by the mere suggestion of disembarking on the other side but we were glad we did.  Trekking the flights of stairs up the cliff, and then up a further hill (Laura loves hills when they go up), we gave ourselves a beautiful view looking back over Quebec.  We skilfully navigated a roadwork, ill-suited for such narrow little streets, and topped ourselves up with an amazing ice cream; first plopped on the cone, then dipped in fast solidifying chocolate and presented to the eager and soon to be messy child/Nick.  As we contemplated our soon to plagiarised ice cream business model, we were taken passed churches, and libraries, many homes obviously too, and ultimately back to the ferry.  

This in turn dropped us off near the local market where we got a lasagne for tea, ate, and headed back out for a ghost walk.  Neither over, nor under, but just nicely whelmed would be a fair description of it.  Nice walk around the city, with an awkwardly small group was nobody’s fault, but the stories weren’t all that great.  Maybe I’m just a spoiled Old Worlder with too much history and too many ghost stories.  Either way, a good end to an amazing city, and Boston awaited.