After living in East Coast USA for a number of years, it was always a welcome change to hop across to French-speaking Canada for a reminder of Europe.
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| Streets of Quebec City |
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| Fairmont Chateau Frontenac |
We undertook two trips over the years - the first time, we only visited Quebec City and the second time, we went to Quebec City and Montreal. We would always drive to East Canada through Maine. This involved an overnight stay at a country inn by the coast accompanied by copious shopping at the Maine outlets. One lucky visit to the Burberry outlet at Freeport resulted in a stuffed boot full of umbrellas, shoes and jackets and we hadn't even arrived in Canada yet!
The first visit to Quebec City in the summer was magical. I wasn't sure what to expect so it was a genuine surprise when we felt like we had landed somewhere in Europe. As it was peak summer tourist season, we caught a free outdoor Cirque de Soleil show for the public and an impressive illumination show across several buildings at the riverside in the evening.
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| The Promenade |
Quebec City is a joy to walk around - interesting artisan shops line the hilly streets and the fairytale castle-like hotel Fairmont le Chauteau Frontenac sits at the central city's highest point.
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| Beautiful streets |
The food is a highlight - I couldn't believe how tasty the butter was after all the sanitized versions I had been experiencing in the US. Embarrassingly, I even asked a restaurant whether this was special home-made butter. The server gave me a confused look, stating that it was just their regular butter.
One of our favorite restaurants was the Nordic-inspired Chez Boulay. For a more detailed review of the meal, see the
entry at the Hungrylaws blog.
On our second visit, we were more familiar with Quebec City and it was Montreal that was new and exciting. The city was larger though and harder to love.
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| Montreal |
We ate poutine and caught free performances at the Montreal Jazz Festival.
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| Montreal Jazz Festival |
We visited the botanical gardens which had a large Chinese garden.
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| The Chinese Garden in Montreal |
We stayed at L'Hotel which had plenty of interesting artwork. Unfortunately, our trip to Montreal was marred by damage to Paul's RAV4 by the hotel valet parking.
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| Exterior of L'Hotel Montreal |
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