Road tripping in Quebec, part deux

We had debated the best way to get to Quebec city. None of the routes immediately screamed at us that they were particularly picturesque, but determined to see the best of the area, we chose the route that took us along the banks of the St Lawrence, through the pretty, vintage French settlements. I don't know why this route doesn't get better press. It winds its way along, occasionally throwing spectacular panoramas of the river and it's opposite banks, at you. We stopped a few times on the way there, and then again on the way back too, so much did we enjoy it.

When we got in to Quebec it was very dark, and fairly late, so rather than go exploring, we enjoyed a cup of tea and watched some good ol' Canadian tv and went to bed.

First on our list that day was not the old city or the St Lawrence; as important as these were, we had more pressing issues. The time had come to introduced Lucy and Ben to Tim Horton's! What a great Canadian tradition! I feel like maybe being able to competently order fast food and understand the esoteric standard questions you are being asked, is the mark of some one who is no longer fresh to a country. Lucy and Ben definitely represented better what I looked like when I first got here and was confronted with a Timmy's menu, which is, a little overwhelmed, or a little baffled to say the least... In not entirely sure that the experience quite matched the build up, but there again, they haven't got addicted to it yet, all it would take is a little time. ;-)

Anyways, the sweet of Tim Horton's donuts was quickly matched by the bitter of the parking ticket that we achieved while getting them... Much as we had looked out for parking signs, we had not seen it hidden behind both a big machine and a tree - quel surprise! In fact, if it had been anywhere except Quebec I might have argued that there sign was unreasonably obscured, but I am unable to start an effective argument in French, and unwilling to argue with a French person in English - it seems rude, so that was that. Most expensive breakfast ever. C'est la vie...

Moving on from our breakfast debacle in a remarkably chipper mood, we went to find the citadel and the old town. The citadel was,  surprisingly, actually build by the British. It's quite enormous and does really look like a citadel, Civilisation V stylee, in a star of hugenormous ditches, fortified with quite the stone walls. Inside there's a working military camp to this day.

Not sure why we were cheering, maybe for past British victories... or maybe for puffins... who knows?! (outside the citadel entrance)

For me, the special part of the citadel was on the outside though. We had decided not to pay for, out wait for, the tour that takes you inside and instead went for a walk along the top, which leads to an unsurpassably magnificent urban view. The citadel is on the top of a cliff with the St Lawrence to one side and the old town rolling down the other side of the hill. And so we sat on the hill side for a bit taking in the 20 something degree sun, along with the south banks of the St Lawrence, the autumnal  Laurentian hills in the backdrop and set off by the turrets of the Fairmont hotel in the foreground. :-)

Just chillin'

If you claim nothing else for Quebec, you'd still have to allow that Quebec City is simply  beautiful. I've been told in the past that perhaps Europeans such as myself wouldn't appreciate Quebec as much as the average Canadian because we've already seen European stuff - it's normal to us. But I think it's unfair to say that we wouldn't appreciate it as much; classy is still clay no matter how many times you see it, and besides, I think I found setting a town like this *in north america* pretty much as novel as Neil did, it's just not quite what you expect - plus, it had windy (rhymes with rind, not as in breezy) streets and cobbles :-D  

I love Europe's non-linear streets... Weird thing to miss perhaps, but I guess it's something I come across every single day, so fair enough, I think!

I think it's fair to say we were all pretty impressed with Quebec city. After taking the funicular railway up the hill, we mozied around the shops and drank lots of tea and enjoyed the side walk cafe culture that doesn't really exist in the rest of Canada. We went for a wander on the wall of the city for yet more fantastic views and then topped off the day with a self driven tour through the plains of Abraham park, and an impromptu tour of the old city again while trying to negotiate their traffic system!

Another chilled out evening passed in the company of tea and cocktails, supplemented by the hotel's hot tub and swimming pool! Very nice :-) 

The next morning we were due to head back to Montreal for our bus home, but wanted to stop by Montmorency waterfalls first. A warm up for Niagara, if you like! The falls are just 20 minutes from the centre of the city, which is pretty cool, because usually in Canada they are more of a wilderness thing... And they're also pretty enormous - a little taller than Niagara actually - quite a lot less water, admittedly... but very pretty :)

So, i guess this doesn't give you the best perspective, but its fair to say it was pretty big, and the canyon it has carved over the years, drawing back from the St Lawrence, is pretty impressive!

From there we idled our way back to where we came from, with just enough time to get an epic burger at a pretty epic burger bar that Neil had made it his life's mission to go to (and then eat!)

I offer my beautiful face purely for scale...

...and feeling quite ill, we boarded the greyhound back to Ottawa, quite content with our mini-adventure (TM).

Road-tripping in Quebec

It's been too long since I went on a road trip and I think in order to get the best out of Ontario it's definitely best to leave it for a while and go to Quebec...

I was very keen to show Lucy and Ben Montreal, having been there once before and loved it. And I was actually even more excited to show Neil Montreal; despite having lived in Ottawa (just over 2 hours away) for half of his life, somehow he'd never quite made it. So, on Thursday afternoon we rolled into Montreal and set about finding our home for two days. We were experimenting with Airbnb.com which i had only recently come across, when we got together with a group of tree planting friends post-season this year and stay up near Gibson on the sunshine coast, just north-west of Vancouver. Having had an excellent experience there, we thought we'd try it again here. 

OK, so while writing, i went off on a bit of a tangent about airbnb and how it's under threat in NYC- which you can now find on a separate post - here. 

Our first stop in the city - with the exception of a fantastically cheap Chinese buffet lunch, was the old town and port area of the city. Montreal's old town is small but beautifully formed. It seems to be based around a pedestrianised square in front of the town hall and supreme court, with a couple of blocks worth of streets either side.

It's definitely true to say that it has a distinctly European feel to it - especially when you come across hidden little nooks and crannies in the alleys and court yards.

Last time I was in Montreal, one such court yard was the view from my temporary home, smack bang in the middle of the old town. It was a great place to stay - at 17 dollars a night it was one of the cheapest hostels I've stayed in in north america. It was a loft just packed with bunk beds, divided by curtains, but downstairs it just looked like a normal house, so you could feel at home. The owners turned up once in a while to take payment if they saw you, and if not they'd just charge you in retrospect after you left. Super friendly, awesome place to stay, and with a fantastic view and location in the old town that I found my self returned to now. The weird thing about the last time I was in Montreal, is that I'm not entirely sure how I spent all my time there. Don't get me wrong,I had a fantastic time, but I seemed not to have done much that there was to do. This time we would set that right. So for the rest of the after noon we mingled through the intriguing art and fur shops that are plentiful in the old town. Found a couple of stuffed polar bears for sale - only, like, 20000 dollars, or 30000, if you like...

After that, we started to wander slowly in the direction of the Bell stadium, which is where the NHL team, the Montreal Canadians, plays. I figure that if you want to experience Canadian culture then both a hockey game, and also Tim Horton's for breakfast someday, are both requisite. I had, myself , also never gotten around to going to an NHL game, which seemed like a bit of a travesty. 

That night it was the Ottawa senators vs the Montreal Canadians. Obviously, we were rooting for the Sens. It started out well, but after the first period stated going rapidly down hill... The playing aside though, it was an awesome experience and totally different to seeing it on TV. I guess it was also quite a depart departure from the Giants game I went to in Vancouver too. Firstly, because there's a crowd of close to 20000 people there - mainly rooting for our opposition too! That's pretty cool being in a common cause with so many people (and getting everyone to sing the national anthem!).

I guess the second difference is that it's televised. Some how it had never occurred to me that when you have an ad break in a hockey game, that the game much stop in reality, as well as on TV. So, more frequently than you would expect, every thing just stops and they tidy up the ice a little bit. The result is that an hour and half's worth of game lasts almost an extra hour. Crazy north Americans... Despite this extra stoppage, there was actually way less entertainment between periods in this game than the giants game I went to, perhaps because they know that you're gonna spend quite so much time queuing to get a ridiculously expensive, weird tasting beer. C'est la vie. At the end of the game we were keen to head to bed, having had a long day already, but crowned our evening with some really run of the mill, gooey poutine, in true Quebec style.

The next day we decided to hear out to the botanic gardens. Having done some research, we had collectible decided that this was the main thing to see and do in Montreal. Now I'm pretty sure the last time I was there, I looked into this, thinking out was a good idea, but quickly discounted it after looking at the astounding summer ticket price - somewhere up around 30 bucks. That said, I'm glad we bothered this time. In also glad we went early - by midday there were queues stretching for quite some distance in to the car park. I have never seen such a ridiculously popular garden before - especially one that charges you quite so much to have a look. I figure it truly must be doing something right.  

In fact, it turns out that they do every thing right - well they do bushes and trees very right in any case. And the bushes get special mention. When we went they had an exhibition on called 'mosaics of culture' which is a moving international competition, where counties compete to make living sculptures on the theme of nature. The result is basically the best topiary you've ever seen. Pictures follow.

(Just a small selection - you can see more on my Picasa web albums - here)

Besides the fantastic bushes, the Chinese and Japanese gardens were also of note. We actually saw them twice because at the same time an exhibition lighting up the gardens was running in the evenings, so we returned later that night to see them in all their night time glory. One we'd got there, we almost didn't bother, so popular, again, was the exhibit that the queue for the Chinese garden stretched for quite a distance across the gardens as a whole, with waits of over 30 minutes, at the shortest. They're clearly doing something right...

The next morning we had planned to meet some friends for lunch, and on our way took in the view off mont royal, spectacular as ever, even if i couldn't work out how to get back to the view point I had previously been to up there.

For lunch, Montreal smoked poutine, for the boys at a local Jewish deli, and a good catch up with some tree planting friends. 

Our last stop before leaving Montreal was or third attempt to go and see the Notre Dame basilica. We'd been thwarted on previous occasions by weddings and actual church services - dammit... But Lucy was very keen and I'm glad we got there in the end. It looks pretty much like most churches on the outside, but the interior decor is fantastic, and completely different from the European style too. Super colourful and ornate. We also listen to a fascinating explanation of how key the church was to the origins and expansion of Montreal and the region reaching up to Quebec too. 

By that point it was getting kind of late and we still had a fair drive to go to get to our digs in Quebec city that night. We drive out of Montreal in rush hour traffic, so it took a little while longer than expected, but once we were on to the scenic highway by the river, it was a beautiful drive of scenic villages and views of the river, where we occasionally stopped for pictures, and to stretch our legs, until it got dark when we went onto the highway proper.