Day20 Quebec (Thu 18th)

A hot air balloon rises over the city in the morning and there’s a real crispness in the
clean air, especially compared to the US cities. We have a city tour with a local guide, who’s a bit of a wag, at 9 after a hotel full buffet breakfast. The tour is brief, we see the low water front area and lookout parklands and it ends about 10:30am and some of us have nothing else arranged so the rest of the day we’re free to explore the city. One of the prettiest I’ve ever seen, well at least the tourist bit we get around in, that houses 700,000 or there abouts, the parks, immaculate gardens, where tourism is the number one industry.

After the tour we get a chance to wander around and explore the old and new areas of the city. Lunch is in a Crepeary Restaurant up on the top floor, strawberries and ice crème for lunch. The chocolate in Canada is the best too, way better than the States. Most people in the hospitality industry speak English and French so the 90% French province is easy to communicate with and I’m reminded that it was only 38 years ago that a referendum was very close to voting Quebec out of Canada as an independent state.

After walking around for a few hours, through Chateu Frontenac, the copper roofed, square blocked granite houses and business houses, and after lunch we head back for a granny knap as we didn’t sleep real flash last night. After that we head downtown to the shops and lower township, down and later back up the fernacular. It starts to get real cold as the sun heads down to the horizon, the breeze picks up and the shadows get longer, about 8 deg we find out later. The city as part of the 400 year old celebration has a small fair where people can see art, performances and shows. We get invited (in French) into a small tent with different, memorabilia, by two ladies in costume. With a little hesitation we go in with about a dozen others and a performance begins, all in French, that turns out to be an audience involving skit about different stuff and a little amusing, afterwards a rock band on stage. More shopping, stopping and looking at jumpers for Chris as she’s feeling the cold and we buy a Quebec scarf. A Irish pub for a drink and try to warm up, where I get chatted for not tipping the barmaid, knew I forgot something. Later yet, another restaurant meal includes steak as part of a four course meal and we walk back in the 5deg cold on the way back to the Hilton.