Another day in Quebec

Today began with another tour. The minibus was to pick us up at 9:30 in front of Le Musée de la Civilisation and was to be 4 1/2 hours long. 

(Vicki here. 

At one point, when we were waiting for the tour bus, this pulled up:

My first thought was, "oh, no, he didn't!" - wondering if my sweet husband had lost his mind and booked a tour on a school bus. But then, thankfully, out came little children a la Québécois, about the age of our little neighbor, Charlie. They were all bundled up like little nanooks, with their little touks and mittens. So cute. 

Now, back to Dan.)

This tour was across the St. Lawrence from Quebec City. This was one I had especially looked forward to and one I wanted to share with Vicki. I brought a dozen or so CBHS French students up here in the late eighties and some of my best memories were associated with this tour.

Memories play tricks. 

Our first stop was Montmorency Falls, 83 meters high - which is, our guide was quick to point out, 30 meters higher than Niagara Falls. The view from the top of the falls was brilliantly white - you are looking here at frozen water, both under the bridge and in the foreground. All the water of the falls flows under all this ice and snow.

Warning sign on the trail. The fourth warning isn't quite serious enough. "Chute" means falling in this context. Falling icicles is pretty clear - you can die from being impaled by one. But the snow one makes it look like those are pretty little flakes floating slowly to settle upon your shoulders. What that intends to tell you is that any amount from a snowball to a dump truck full could land on your head at any minute, leaving you with a wet neck at a minimum or sweeping you off the mountainside in an avalanche at worst. In town, there are such signs along the sidewalk, because hundreds of pounds of snow on roofs in Quebec gain sentience at some point and, lemming like, slide off collectively with the aim of burying you on the sidewalk. Then the snowplow comes along, scoops you up, and deposits you in a snow bank where you will not thaw out until late spring. 

Over the falls is a suspension bridge, here beautified by the lovely Vicki Murrell.

More of the bridge. I can't post videos on this blog, but I can give you links to videos I took. The photos have no depth to them, so a video is the only way I can show you what the falls look like from above: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fUpJxFEm78 & http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7oxDFdn7iM 

The graffiti artists that got out on this ledge to share OMG were nuts. 

This is how the falls look from near the highway....

...and a little closer. 

A bit further down the road, we went on l'Ile d'Orléans, an island about 5 miles by 21 miles in the Saint Lawrence, reachable by car by only one bridge. It is reachable by boat, or when everything freezes, there are places that you can walk across the river. We had an opportunity to shoot the city from the island.

One of the the things we did was visit Chez Marie. They have been baking bread for years, and tour buses have stopped by for years for homemade bread with maple butter. Back on my trip in the eighties, we stopped at some place like this and had hot, fresh bread that dripped with maple butter. It was heaven. My memories were promptly squashed by a commercialized stop where we got room temp bread, not particularly good, with maple "spread" that was now made with oil and other extenders. I apologized to Vicki for the build up and pouted on the bus.

A lot of the homes on the island have root cellars like this one. The temp is a constant 5 degrees Celsius (41 F) regardless of the temp outside.

The final stop of our tour was Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, both a town and the name of its Basilica. 

This is Sainte Anne in gold. 

The Catholic Church credits this Basilica with many miracles of curling the sick and disabled. These items have been left behind.

And this area is dedicated to St. John Baptiste de la Salle, French priest, educational reformer, and founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. He is a saint and, more specifically, the patron saint of teachers. All of my CBHS students know this, especially those who came on this trip. 

These are deadly icicles at the Basilica without a warning sign. 

So we finished the tour, and, because we had not eaten all day, headed off to Aux Anciens Canadiens, a well-known restaurant near the Chateau Frontenac. I would not have thought we could ever afford to eat there, but 1. I would have gone anywhere at that point, and 2. Our guide had clued us in on a special lunch menu. The highlight of my meal was escargots. 

Also at this meal, we had our third or fourth political discussion with a Canadian, who are not afraid to boring the topic up. In general, we have found that Canadians are generally well-informed about our history, our political system, and our candidates, whereas many Americans remain unsure of who Joe Biden is or what happened in 1776. We have also found them to be incredulous that Trump is running and winning, and many have asked if there are really Americans investigating a move to Canada if he should win.

On leaving the restaurant, we made it around the corner, where Vicki slipped on an icy patch and banged her head against the building. There were a couple of nice folks who stopped to see how she was and ask if she needed to go to the hospital, but she soldiered on. However, we quit for the afternoon. 

After some recuperation time, we wandered down our quiet back street to a French restaurant where we were the only customers. We only wanted dessert and a beverage, but also had a nice conversation with the owner, who was French. I had a creme brûlée with pastis that was wonderful and Vicki tried another sugar pie. We are becoming coinnesseurs of sugar pie, noting the textures vary as well as the taste. But we haven't sent one back yet. 

And looking ahead, we now know where we will have lunch tomorrow. I'm always keeping an eye out for that next good meal.