Quebec City

The streets of the Quebec City Old Town are straight from the opening scene of Beauty and the Beast. You could be forgiven for believing that Belle or her father were about to appear at any moment and there’s no doubt the Beast could be hiding in the Chateau Frotenac!

We took the car into town. I have finally got the gist of the offline maps.me app so finding our way around has suddenly become much easier and finding an all day park down by the waterfront was not difficult. From there we walked (and walked, and walked) up through the lower town to the funicular, an odd little elevator come cable car that takes you to the old city. There are so many shops to wander around. If I had any room at all in my luggage I could gladly have spent hours there but it’s really just teasing to window shop.

Quebec City is multi levelled and from the Old City you can go even higher, up about 300 steps to the promenade around the fortifications that would have originally protected the city. The view out over the St Lawrence is breath taking.

The Plains of Abraham spread out in hectares of green fields at the very top of the city. At this time of year they are home to the Quebec Music Festival and we saw some of the bands warming up. A few thousand more steps took us along the Grande-Alee, past the Parliament building, up to St Louis Gate, then down D’Auteuil to Place d’Youville, along the Cote-de-Fabrique and up to City Hall and the Basilica through streets full of very old and beautifully preserved buildings. There were buskers in the square and artists at work down many of the alley ways. It was like Paris without the Parisians (and have I mentioned yet how friendly the Quebecois are?).

We finally made our way back down to the waterfront and completed our visit with a wander through the harbour side market where we bought a tub of strawberries that were the size of small apples, for $2 (tax included!)

Taine has succumbed to a nasty sore throat so we let him choose dinner. He wanted ‘dirty bird’, known here as PFK – Poulet Frit Kentucky ! We had to drive half way across town for it but that gave us a chance to check out the different neighbourhoods.

Tonight, a quiet evening of PFK, beer and baseball in our hotel room (at the bargain price of $27.95 + beer a much better option than we took last night!)

Border Patrol

It seemed silly to be so close to the US border and not drop in for a visit, so we drove the 30 something kms to Stanstead and walked over into Vermont. Stanstead is a town divided, a bit like Echuca-Moama or Albury-Wodonga but covering two countries rather than two states.

We parked the car on the Canadian side because we were carrying fruit and didn’t want to rummage through the car to bin it and proceeded on foot to the ‘frontiere’. Our guide at Niagara had mentioned several times that Canada and the US have the longest unprotected border in the world. This checkpoint didn’t feel unprotected. The officers at immigration were certainly friendly enough but the questioning was rigorous and their guns were real.

Who are we?- Just some inquisitive Aussie tourists.

Why did we travel to Canada?- To visit a friend ( What friend, where does she live, how do we know her?)

What do we do for a living?- Both teachers (Both? What subjects, what year levels, what schools?)

Do we always travel as a family?- Is this a trick question because I’ve seen ‘The Americans’ on Netflix and the KGB spies always masquerade as families?- Yes

Have we been in any Middle Eastern countries in the last 5 years?- No.( No? You mean except for time you spent in the UAE ?) Ooops, forgot about the missed plane in Dubai but seriously, we hardly left the airport.

How long do we intend to stay in the US?- About 30 minutes ( Are you sure? Will you be back, what’s the point?) Umm, just seems like an interesting thing to do… sir.

And what do we intend to do while we’re here?- Umm, drink coffee ( Well sure, y'all can do that, Just take a seat while we attend to the biometrics) Thank you officer.

We're in!

After we were ‘processed’ – filled in arrival cards, fingerprinted, photo ID’ed, paid our $6 fee and issued with temporary green cards, we walked across the road to a diner, where the change of country became immediately apparent. A soda bar with 750ml containers for 69c, hot dogs with queso and cold beer and wine all available at 10am (in Quebec you can only buy wine at one authorised liquor outlet).

Happy Days

We spent a few of the greenbacks we’d saved since 2012, drank some coffee, ate some hot dogs and read the NY Times before heading back to the Quebecois side. Re-entry to Canada was a very simple (and predictably friendlier) procedure. As a bonus, our passports were stamped on both sides.

It’s crazy to think how different life can be on either side of an imaginary line. Different languages, different laws, different currency, different politics. For other teachers of children’s literature, the whole exercise reminded me of the Fattypuffs and Thinifers. In between the border points is a little bridge, several houses and a shared library. The people who live/work in this no man’s land must live a Jekyll and Hyde existence.

One foot in each country

From Stanstead we headed toward Quebec City. The fastest route is via the ‘20’ but we tried an alternate, more scenic road. Our GPS was slightly confused but slowly and surely we wend our way through the countryside of greenest farmland you ever saw, punctuated by pitch roofed farmhouses (all with flower bowls on display) and enormous barns for housing the cows during the Winter. We thought Asbestos might be a nice place to stop for lunch but it wasn’t so we kept going until we needed fuel and a quick pitstop at a Walmart.

Due to our meandering we didn’t reach Quebec City until peak hour, a relatively stressful experience for Geoff but one that he handled expertly.

Our hotel is out of town at Beauport (the city was way out of our budget) and sits beside the Saint Lawrence River, a huge ribbon of water that runs through Quebec. There’s no view from the room but out the back you get a great view across the river to the city and there’s a bike path for Geoff to run on.

 We had our first bad food experience for dinner. We chose a chain restaurant called Mikes because it was beside the hotel. Understandably the menu was in French but poisson et frites sounded safe enough. It turned out to be two lumps of cod encased in rock hard batter, accompanied by some lettuce leaves and a couple of onion rings. Along with Taine’s sub (that Subway would have been ashamed of), a couple of beers, burnt poutine, taxes and the recommended %15 tip, the bill was $80! Seriously ripped off. No more fine dining for us.

Thumbs down for Mikes

Magog

We packed a picnic and continued our tour of the Eastern townships, beautiful little villages set around the many big lakes in the area.

 

The sea serpent of Lake Magog

We stopped in Magog for our lunch. There was plenty going on- a vintage car show in the car park, yachting, jet skiing and lots of families picnicking along the banks of the lake. Given that the water in the designated swimming area of the lake is waist deep at best and the water is as still as a mill pond, it was quite amusing for us to see life guards at several points along the edge of the lake. With no rips and no sharks, it must be a boring job at best. Luckily Taine and Geoff provided a focal point for the guards by skipping stones in the swimming area- this resulted in some shrill whistle blowing and strong hand gestures. A second indiscretion, attempting to swim outside the buoys, resulted in another bout of whistling and finger wagging. Luckily, they got out then without risking a third strike. I can only imagine how politely they would have been told to ‘si retirer’.

With Florence’s tuition, our French is improving.

Yesterday Geoff made an entire order for ice cream:

“Bonjour, je suis Australien” (make apologies early!)

“Je parle en peu français” ( I speak only a little French)

“Une petit vanillé crème glace, s’il vous plaît” ( One small vanilla ice cream please)

As for me? Well, I understood when I was being asked if I needed a bag in the super marche and Taine said ‘merci’ twice instead of grunting. Great progress!

The ice creams were INCREDIBLE. Soft serves as big as your arm, dipped in super thick chocolate and whatever else you fancied. I can’t post a photo of them because Taine chose the grande size and it resembled something very lewd!

For dinner we bought beautiful slabs of salmon and cooked them back at the Airbnb while we tried to entice the chipmunks out of the woods with peanut butter.

Sunset over North Hatley