Our first stop was Montreal and only scheduled for a four-day weekend, since we had visited here a few years ago. We managed to be in town during the Just for Laughs Festival but shows for all the big name comics were already sold out. We did go downtown to the Quartier des Spectacles to wander around and partake of some of the free activities. We staked out a spot at one of the outdoor stages to sit and people watch while we waited for one of the free acts to start. Just as we feared however, the performance was in French. Not very funny (comedy loses something in translation but can’t survive a complete lack of language comprehension), but at least I discovered a new good beer, Sleemans Clear, while we waited.
One thing I noticed right away was that contrary to all the accommodations that are present in other parts of Canada to make everything English and French (our 2 national languages), that did not seem to be the case in Quebec. Protective of their French heritage, they disdain English translations and speaking in English. Restaurants are required to provide menus in English “if” you request one, so many do not have translations. Fortunately, Bill knows a bit of French so he managed to converse just enough for us to get by (gotta love high school French class and apparently not just because the teacher was so hot). He tried to help me pronounce words correctly in French, but it doesn’t blend well with my Texas twang.
Old Town was fun for an e
vening stroll on the cobblestone streets, where we had a dinner of really good savory crepes followed by some Puffs for dessert, basically crispy fried donut holes drenched in sweet toppings. We also stocked up at Atwater Market with some great pastries from Premiere Moisson and super sweet berries (Dessa may not know French but she is fluent in pastry).
St Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal is one of ten must see churches in Montreal. Construction began in 1904, with the dome completed in 1937 (talk about having challenges with your contractors). In 1949–1951, architect Gilbert Moreau carried out alterations and improvements to the interior, giving it an almost austere, modern look. There is an iron work wall behind the alter, that looks like it represents thorns, flanked by beautiful murals. A life-sized wooden sculpture of Jesus on the cross and two followers praying at his feet stand on the alter. The entire sanctuary is very plain as large churches go, but still quite lovely. On the side walls were twelve wooden sculptures of the apostles, at least ten feet tall, and very thin, all giving a different hand sign. Missing was all the stained glass typical of most churches. We stayed for a free organ concert and sat in the back when it began. With the massive organ opposite the alter, we were all sitting with our backs to the organist, and we watched on video screens at the front (organ recitals not exactly being our thing, we ducked out after about ten minutes and went to explore the grounds). There was a long, manicured lawn leading from the street to the steps up to the church, at the top of the highest peak in the city. Past the lawn, there are 99 concrete steps on either side of wooden steps that are reserved for the most devout that climb to the top on their knees. The church is a pilgrimage site, where allegedly thousands of miracles have occurred. To one side of the basilica there is a large meditation garden, with a dozen white plaster sculptures, each in their own separate shady areas, depicting the crucifixion and resurrection. In back is a small chapel, and at the base of Mt. Royal is the convent complex of the Religious Hospitallers of St. Joseph.
St Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal
In total contrast, we also visited Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, during a wedding. It is inspired by Saint Peter’s Basilica in Rome, and is ornate in the extreme. Built at the end of the 19th century, it is a massive Renaissance cathedral, topped by a green copper dome and 13 life size sculptures depicting patron saints. Inside it has a 40ft tall baldachin of red copper and gold leaf over the high alter, twisting golden columns are topped by a golden crown, surrounded by angels. With murals, and stained glass, inlaid floors, and fine sculptures, this church has it all. I’m sure the wedding couple loved having tourists walking around and taking pictures. We also tried to visit Notre-Dame but it was closed due to a concert. We weren’t too bummed since we were getting a bit churched out.
International Fireworks Competition
Montreal hosts an International Fireworks Competition each year, and the Chinese performance was scheduled during our visit. The fireworks are launched from platforms in the St Lawrence River and set to music. We decided to watch from the opposite shore to avoid traffic trying to get there and back across the bridges. In spite of this we sat in almost an hour of barely moving traffic just to get to the parking area we chose. It was a beautiful evening at about 72 degrees and the show was fantastic (yes, even better than the July 4th fireworks we enjoyed in Greely Ontario). We could hardly hear the music but had great views of the fireworks.
From Montreal, we travelled 3 hours to Quebec City, the capital of Quebec, where we visited the imposing Parliament Buildings. The National Assembly was not in session so we got to see the rooms where they meet (while they call it the National Assembly, it is really just the Quebec Provincial Government buildings). The National Assembly Chamber is painted a bright blue and the Senate chamber is painted a deep pink. With the Senate now dissolved, this chamber is now used only for special committees and the Prime Ministers Cabinet. Both are ornate with lots of plaster moldings, chandeliers, murals and giant paintings at the far end. The Blue Room also contains a throne for the parliamentary President to mediate from.
After we left Parliament, we began another of our city scavenger hunts. We started by passing through the arched gate in the old city wall to enter Upper Town Old Quebec, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The cobblestone streets are narrow and lined with pretty sidewalk cafes and old stone buildings, with brightly painted shutters and trim. Upper Town was the site for Fort Saint Louis in 1608 and the fortress wall still encircles the area. The Citadelle was the military stronghold within the city and was completed in 1690 (it is still an active military installation today). Bill thought about coming back another day without me for the changing of the guard among other things but never did (Dessa isn’t really big on museums or forts).
Chateau Frontenac
The famous Chateau Frontenac (now a Fairmont property) opened in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway to promote luxury tourism with first class accommodations. It is a sprawling mass that sits atop Cap Diamant, overlooking the wide boardwalk along the St Lawrence River. We stopped to watch a busker with a metal hoop and a tall pole that did great tricks, and bought some maple syrup that was poured on shaved ice (its actually supposed to be snow but contrary to rumor, snow is hard to find in Canada in July) then rolled onto a popsicle stick (this is a very traditional and delicious treat usually only found at sugar shacks in the spring. A sugar shack for those that don’t know is where they boil down maple tree sap into maple syrup). They were charging $2.50 for each maple syrup popsicle and had a continuous line (given an ingredient cost of at most 25¢, they were making a fortune. Of course, that didn’t stop us from buying one).
The Old Port Market is in Lower Old Town and was billed as the farmer’s market to visit. It was not impressive at all. We have come to expect markets to be large and have a variety of shops, restaurants and bakeries, in addition to fresh produce. This one was small and only had one place serving food, so Bill found us a restaurant back up the hill in Upper Town, Chez Temporal is where I discovered Festin Feta. It was a baguette sliced long ways, covered with olive oil, tomatoes, onions, olives, feta and toasted. Like a giant bruschetta, it was so good, I later tried to make it at home with marginal success. Topping off a good lunch, required a great dessert. We wandered the narrow streets looking for Paillard, a famous patisserie, where we got an assortment of fabulous desserts. If you are ever in Quebec City, this should be at the top of your must do list… I wish I was there now.
Water, water everywhere, we went hiking around two different waterfalls. The first was Chutes De La Chaudiere, 35 meters or 115 feet tall, we climbed down into the bowl at the base of the falls, then hiked the park trails. The second was Montmorency Falls, 83 meters or 272 feet tall, about 100 feet taller than Niagara Falls. We parked at the bottom, climbed the 487 steps to the suspension bridge that stretches across the falls and watched the zip liners. In winter, this fall freezes forming a wall of ice called the Sugar Loaf, and ice climbers take to the frozen cliff walls. Standing at the bottom, both falls were pretty dramatic.
Chutes De La Chaudiere
Reford Gardens
Leaving the big cities behind, we spent a couple of days in the town of Rimouski. Bill picked this spot because nearby were the Reford Gardens (as much as I like to make my wife happy by giving her flowers to photograph, Rimouski was also a logical stop on our route around the Gaspe Peninsula). The fifteen English style gardens are known as one of Canada’s outstanding horticultural attractions. They were created between 1926 and 1958 by an avid gardener, Elsie Reford. They have over 3,000 varieties of native and exotic plants and we did find some interesting flowers we had never seen before. We took about 1000 pictures and in an effort to avoid imposing them on our readers that are not as interested in flowers, we have posted them in a separate album (don’t be afraid to take a look. We only posted the best 63).
Parc National du Bic, was minutes from our RV park, and boasted 15 miles of hiking trails. It is not a large park, but follows the coastline of the St Lawrence River and claimed to have capes, bays, coves, islands and mountains, as well as wooded areas and meadows. Who could resist a hike that offers so much? It was a misty, foggy morning but we opted to go anyway, and the parc was quite nice. The fog provided some interesting photo ops and while the coast had a rugged beauty, the forest sections were very gloomy and it appeared that about half of trees had succumbed to some kind of disease. I was complaining to Bill that we hadn’t seen much wildlife on our hike but a ¼ mile from the end we came across a deer eating bushes right beside the path and right at the end saw some seals out in the bay.
Continuing our journey along the St Lawrence coast we headed to Perce, home of the Rock (obviously not Alcatraz. The area is a geologists dream with 500 million years of history of the earth). It was a gorgeous drive along the coast and up and down the Appalachian Mountains. However, towing the trailer along that route turned a 5 hour drive into a 6.5 hour drive. We usually pack a lunch on travel days, but tired of sandwiches I opted not to this time. While I did pack some snacks, the only towns we passed through were tiny, with no fast food or even gas stations where we could park our giant rig and walk to a restaurant. I won’t make that mistake again.
Colorful Houses
We passed beautiful fields of yellow and purple flowers and pretty, brightly colored farm houses made of siding or clapboard, with color coordinated shingle or metal roofs. As we passed through one town we saw a color run taking place along the beach (we just caught the end but I’ve never seen anything like it, every 20 yards or so they tossed various colors of chalk paint at the runners).
Apparently in Canada, you either have a lake cottage, or you own an RV, or you rent a cottage or an RV. In this part of Canada, RV’s are everywhere. Some of the RV parks are incredible playgrounds for kids. They offer not only pools, but also sand boxes, remote controlled car tracks, giant balloons the size of a pool for jumping on, outdoor movies, kid friendly activities, even hayrides, and of course the usual playground equipment. The parks are full of kids riding every type of kid ride on toys. At one of our stops they were having Christmas in July, and most of the RV’s had decorated. One night they had a live band, and the next day they had a parade of decorated four wheelers and trailers, complete with loud Christmas music and a Santa. They wound through the park giving out Tim Horton’s donut holes and coffee. We happened to be Facetiming with Hunter and Maverick, so we took them outside to watch. We can’t wait till we can take the grandbabies to parks with us. They will LOVE it!
Perce is a small city near the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula, but it is a huge tourist draw. There were lots of campgrounds, even right in town. We were pretty happy with our site this time, because we backed up to a perfect view of Perce Rock – “pierced rock”. It is a huge sheer rock formation and is one of the world’s largest natural arches located in water. The little town was packed with people and lined with restaurant patios. Another big draw is Bonaventure Island, accessible only by ferry, where a Northern Gannet colony is found. We opted instead to go to the Geo Parc and climb Mont-Ste-Anne, where we saw an underwhelming Magic Forest and a ‘bottomless’ cavern, but got some nice shots of the town from the top.
Perce Rock
That’s a wrap for Quebec… onward to New Brunswick.
Our Quebec photos are here.
Our Redford Gardens flower photos are here. Don’t let Bill fool you…half of them are his, he likes flowers too.
