Canada - Quebec

Today we got up, had breakfast, packed and then went for a last stroll around Montreal before picking up our luggage and heading to the Gare Centrale for our train to Quebec.  It was a little delayed, but apart from that all was well.  We did a bit of trundling (when meeting a freight train) but the rest of the time we went quite fast.  Scenery wasn't much to write home about, quite flat, but it was nice to sit back and relax and watch everything go past. 

We arrived in Quebec to find the buses weren't running due to strike action (you can take the French out of France...) so we had to walk the mile or so to our hotel - it's a hilly city so it wasn't particularly pleasant, especially as it was quite warm and muggy too, but we got there, and found our hotel easily.  There were loads of police around and loads of people around and when I say loads, I mean thousands, something was obviously going on, but we didn't know what.

We got checked in, had showers, and headed out - we quickly found out it was a music festival - Canada's biggest one, it runs for 10 days, every night there is a headline act but also plenty more.  Rod Stewart was there 2 days ago, today it is Benson Boone (nope - never heard of him!), tomorrow Def Leopard, and plenty of other artists I have heard of.  As a result the street outside our hotel was rammed with people, and the restaurants all full.  

We had the disorientation of being in a new city, not knowing where anything is, and being surrounded by huge crowds of people.  We just wanted something to eat!  We walked against the crowd in the hope to find some places that weren't full, but we ran out of restaurants, so we walked through the concert area - it was buzzing, but there was no food kiosks, and each restaurant had a queue.  We then found ourselves in the old town of the city, but the prices were astronomical!  We headed down the hill hoping to find something, eventually after about 5 attempts we found a cute bistro which had room and wasn't ridiculously expensive.  We settled in and ordered some pizzas. 

The meal took an age to get to us, but luckily there was a lovely American couple sat next to us, so we chatted until it arrived.  When it arrived, Matt and Tom got a lovely fresh Hawaiian pizza each, and I got a piece of cardboard with some goats cheese on it?  I felt perturbed, but there was nothing we could do, so I chewed my way through it, whilst the boys enjoyed there's. 

First impressions are that this place really does seem French - way more French than Montreal - I think we might even get to speak French here, (in Montreal they switched to English as soon as we opened our mouths).  The architecture is very French our hotel feels French - only missing the round pillows!

We had a good sleep and were raring to go in the morning.  We had breakfast in bed (bought from a supermarket last night - donuts for Matt, cookies for Tom and a croissant jambon fromage for me).  We then headed down towards the old town dipping into interesting shops as we went.  Plenty of great tacky souvenir shops which we all enjoy, as well as others including chocolate shops, book shop (got a map ready for when we have a car), a patiserrie (which we tried out and enjoyed) and plenty more.  Before we knew it, we had rumbling stomachs so we looked for a reasonably priced cafe and found ourselves in the oldest restaurant in Quebec.  Once again we felt we were in France - the waiters were all male and we discovered that if we said "Nous voudrons parler Français" followed by "plus lentement s'il vous plait!" we are allowed to try to converse in French.  Bingo!

We carried on sight seeing after lunch, we eventually got to Le Chateâu Frontenac - the huge imposing building on a cliff's edge that is pretty much the symbol of Quebec - oh did you know that Quebec is the only walled city in North America.  It certainly is a massive and impressive structure.  It was a very hot afternoon - it had rained whilst we were having lunch so it was really muggy.  We walked down the steps to the river's edge and luckily we found a gellaterie and had the most amazing ice cream (black cherry and chocolate for me which was stuffed full of cherries and chocolate!)

We then walked along the shops until we realised there was no way back up the cliff than the way we came down, so we went back up the stairs and back through all the shops to our hotel to put our feet up.   

We had already decided to head to Poutineville for tea - we all chose different toppings - I went for vegetables as we haven't really had many since arriving, whilst the boys went for more classic versions with meat - infact Tom went for a version called the Hangover cure.  Once again after we asked to speak in French the waiters allowed us.  

Tom thought he would be adventurous and order a drink off the menu which we weren't sure of: clamato juice.  Any ideas...?  It arrived with our beers - it looked suspiciously like tomato juice (his worse nightmare)!!!!!!  Tom tried it and said it tasted a bit like bolognaise sauce and it would be ok and then diligently ignored it and drank water!  Matt googled it to find out what it was exactly...so it is a Quebecois speciality...they take tomato juice and water it down with a clam broth!!!!!  So fishy tomato juice - who in their right mind would think that is ok?  We were all crying with laughter when the waiter came over, he offered to replace it - Tom was very happy!

We then headed home for the night - Def Leppard are playing tonight so we will listen in from the comfort of our hotel room.

Monday was a bad weather day - cold and raining the whole day.  We discovered that Quebec Aquarium has polar bears. so we decided to visit them.  It was a bit of a faff, as there is no public transport and the aquarium is 9km from the city centre, and, of course, the roads are all dug up!  

We got an uber, who had no idea where he was - took best part of 30 mins to get there, in the end we told him we would walk, as we could see it but there was no obvious way to get there.  Turns out that the aquarium is undergoing a huge construction project - of course it is!  

We arrived at 11, just as the polar bears got fed, which was very good timing, we saw all 3 and they were great specimens.  One was in the pool having a great time with his ball and the pool had underwater viewing area so you could see them swimming - it was fab, although we got very wet in the rain watching them. 

We then went into the main part of the aquarium - a section on fresh water, sea water, and a small tunnel, there was an exhibition on the Arctic and some deep water tanks.  Outside were some arctic foxes and seals - but it was so wet and rainy we only saw them for a little time.  

We had a small lunch each and then headed back to the bears - but they were in their house too so we couldn't see them.  We called it a day and headed home - this time we got a driver who knew the way, it only took 10 minutes!

We had some down time and then headed back to the old town as Tom wanted a moose to join his collection.  Then back to the hotel, showers etc and out for tea at the Japanese restaurant opposite the hotel - we figured this may be our last chance for something exotic...

We have enjoyed Quebec - just a shame there was no public transport and the weather today was truly awful, limiting what we could do, but we enjoyed the vibe and the 'Frenchness' of the place.  'Hello, Bonjour',  'Merci, thank you!'.