Ça va ?... from the Wandering Berkmans!
Rather than bury the lede, I'll come right out and say it-- give us more than 2 weeks in Quebec City-- s'il vous plait!
With beautiful architecture, interesting food, captivating history that included not just the French and Irish influence but also the Indigenous origins, Québec City has so much more to show us after our limited stay there. Another plus and one important reason we chose Canada for the summer- cooler temps. Even with higher than normal temperatures (85 degrees), QC ended up being less hot than the record breaking temps the US was dealing with. One thing we didn't consider-- cities that don't usually have hot summers don't usually have air conditioning in their homes. We dealt with this in our Airbnb but next time, air con is a must have!
Speaking of our Airbnb, a dear reader requested we include a pic of our place and we're always here to satisfy our readership! Because this was our 3rd time in Quebec City (but by far the longest amount of time) we decided we wanted to be outside the city center to escape the crowds and noise. And for affordability-- 2 weeks near city center is pricey! So we stayed in the suburb Lairet, about 15 min away by bus. The neighborhood was peaceful (a nice change from some of our city stays) but still had shopping and restaurants nearby. And parks! We took advantage of bike paths (which in the winter are cross country skiing paths) to explore these. Here's a pic of our place and a link to check it out (our review should be there as well.)
By far most of our pictures are of the beautiful architecture of the city.
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Aluminum roofs are common because they won't catch on fire and they can withstand very cold climates. We hear it gets a little cold here. |
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| The art deco Price Building. The Mayor lives on the top floor. The fountains where all the cool kids cool off are in front of City Hall just across the street. |
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| We found out by law all homes must have 2 exits for fire safety so this style of staircase was super common in our neighborhood. How people manage to get up those icy stairs in the winter is a mystery we would rather not solve from experience. |
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| Don peeking in the window of J.A. Moison, which claims to be the oldest European-founded grocery store in North America, opened in 1861. Prices, unfortunately, are not from 1861. |
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I could live here! |
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| The ultra modern attached to the Beaux Art |
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| The Parliament Building. There were Adirondack chairs and lawn games to rent to encourage people to hang out on the lawns. Contrast this with, oh I don't know, January 6 maybe? |
The night views of the city didn't disappoint.
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| The Parliament Building at night. The fountain in front was bought in Europe by a local business person, transported and gifted to the city. Total cost after installation- 6 million Canadian dollars ouch! |
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| One of the local train stations where we ended up taking our train to Montreal (highly recommend btw-- comfortable seating, comparable price and took about as long all in. ) |
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Le Chateau Frontenac at night-- spectacular! |
And then there are the random sites that captured our fancy--
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| We're always looking to up our skill set. Learning to play the spoons on a snazzy wooden set like this seems like time well spent! |
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| Don always signs us up for free walking tours to take on our first days in any city so we can get a lay of the land and learn a thing or two about our new "home". Our tour with Sam Dubois was terrific-- not only did he show us the sites we needed to see (Château Frontenac, Old Quebec) but he filled us in on sites you'd otherwise miss. Case in point- the house shown above was used as the murder location in the mixed-reviews Hitchcock film "I Confess." Most of the movie was filmed in QC-- Sam showed us where Hitchcock did his walk-through cameo at the beginning of the film. And when the movie was released, it's said the Church in QC cut at least 2 scenes from the showing there (presumably for what they felt were inappropriate suggestions of a past romantic relationship between the then lay man and the woman.) Because of that, Hitchcock never set foot in QC again. With all this drama, of course we had to see the film! Our Siskel and Ebert take-- thumbs up from both of us for the twists and turns of the plot but it's begging for a remake. I know, sacrilegious to speak of Hitchcock that way but we spare no punches here. Shown here-- Don looking very guilty. Je t'accuse! |
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A slide only open in the winter? Of course-- this is Canada! The toboggans of the Glissades de la Terrace look like they're from 1884 but we agreed we would absolutely take the plunge if we were here in the winter. |
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The majestic 275 foot waterfall at Parc de la Chute-Montmorency with a cable car, pedestrian bridge and zip lining over the falls was a great side trip for the day. Sadly, the zip line was closed. (I say "sadly" as if we were actually going to do that hahaha) |
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We saw this sign everywhere-- "Risk of Falling Ice". Makes a winter visit less appealing. Don here looking appropriately fearful. |
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We were lucky enough to be in town for the Opera Quebec Festival where opera in the wild was everywhere! A random bike ride near our place brought us to this portable theater where these two talented singers performed arias from Carmen, Faust and the Magic Flute (Papageno!). See the baritone perform here. |
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What are the odds?? We strolled into the Old City center and saw small groups lining the closed off street. The Pope's coming any minute now, we're told. Great, let's hang out, we said. And 30 minutes later, there's Francis himself, looking cool as a cuke in a white Fiat. Don went a little fan-girl on him so the video we have is mostly of Don's hand waving hahaha. Oh well, people will just have to believe us. We go about our day and hours later end up near the Chateau Frontenac. More crowds lining a different street. What's going on? The Pope is coming back to the rectory for the night-- here's our chance to get the video proof we need! And the second time's a charm--this still from the video is the money shot. The bemused look on the Pope's face has to be due to the fact that Don yelled out to him "Francis!" Not even his mother called him that. On hearing this story a friend aptly called us "Forrest Gump". |
Going through our photos, we're kinda surprised we didn't take more of the food we ate. But who are we kidding-- you all just want to know about the poutine, that wily concoction of french fries topped with always room-temperature cheese curds (they're sold in stores in a bag by the cash register) and doused with gravy. Glorified Disco Fries? A culinary wonder? We think not, but beloved all the same by the Quebecois. And they really do eat it-- it's not just to show off for the tourists. So we knew we had to try it at least once. Problem is-- I'm not a fried food or gravy fan and Don is lactose intolerant. But sacrifice we must (for the sake of the blog!) so we went for the smallest possible commitment-- a kid-size portion of Poutine Original. The consensus from our very unofficial one-tasting sample-- a big old "meh". The gravy made the fries very soggy... but we must admit I enjoyed the squeaky cheese and Don ate all the dry fries so it wasn't a complete loss. Here I am looking a tad skeptical. Make your own poutine and prove us wrong-- let us know what you think!
So that's our QC in a nutshell. Bottom line-- QC and Montreal (and Ottawa) are looking like great summer options for us, something that's not easily found as we avoid the cold weather but also don't want scorchingly hot weather. Look to this space next summer for no doubt another Canadian stay... and maybe another shot at poutine! They say it takes 10-15 exposures to get a child to like a food and we are basically children.
In the meantime, take a look at Don besting the locals at their own game. Ring the Bull is apparently all the rage in bars and we were lucky to have an outdoor version available to us so that Don could modestly flaunt his American dominance, as you can see in this video.
We're on Day 4 in Montreal after spending some terrific days in Prince Edward Island with Mary and Bob (Don's brother)-- look for our recap in the next blog.
Brilliant! Always a good read!
ReplyDeleteGood stories and pix as always.
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