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Linday and I finally broke free from the girls for more than one day and left them in the caring hands of their grandparents for a whole week! We spent four nights in Montreal, followed by a drive to Quebec City and then back to Montreal to fly back home again. Montreal was both a gastronomic delight and interesting culturally enlightened blend that you would expect in other big cities such as New York City. We spent time visiting the Cathedral of Notre Dame, the Montreal History Museum, hiked to the top of 'the Mont' in Montreal for fantastic views of the city, and walked the shops of the port, old town, china town and the Bohemian part of town. There were more parts of this town than I could ever imagined, which makes Montreal a place that deserves another trip back.
We drove from Montreal mid week to Quebec City, stopping in a small town on a lake for lunch. This was the only place that we visited where the language barrier was difficult. The scenery was sublime and the trees were just starting to change color, but I think that we missed the peak of the season by a week or two. I had high hopes of seeing some wildlife on the drive - deer, elk, or perhaps even a wolf, moose or wolverine. About 2/3rds into our drive I finally spotted a deer, then another one - it was a whole hear of deer! Then I realized that they were all fenced in. It was a deer farm!!! Never seen that before.
Quebec City surpassed all of my expectations. One of the oldest cities in North America, they have preserved the Old Town, most of which is set within the walls of a still actively protected fort. The winding narrow streets, brick and stone buildings, and tin roofs seemed more European than most of the European cities that we have traveled to. We were lucky enough to be able to stay at the Hotel Le Chateau Frontenac, which is a palace of a hotel built after the turn of the century. It's normally patina'd copper roof was copper colored as it was being restored to it's original state. The cobbled streets spilled down into the lower town which you could either walk to down steep steps or take the funicular. Again, shopping and eating abounded in this city. The first day I left Lindsay at the hotel to walk the Fort, the plains of Abraham, and even take in a narrated show on the history of Quebec City and Canada. The second day Lindsay and I drove out to the Montmorency Falls just outside of the city. A very impressive and imposing waterfall, we took the calm trip to the top via the cable car just before we jumped onto the train that we had booked. We booked a passenger train service that might have been the highlight of our trip. The train was modern, served us an amazing brunch and dinner, and stopped in the small town of Baie St. Paul before returning to the Montmorency falls. The train curved in and out of the mountainsides that abutted the St. Lawrence River passing farmlands, villages, and steep jagged wild terrain.It was absolutely delightful!'Wild Flowers yellow, purple, white and red, backdropped against shades of green and brown plains. Hazy purple-rouge mountains on the distant horizon. White clatter board houses with steep pitched roofs here and there. All make way to the great St. Lawrence River - dark grayish-green with distinguished white caps flowing slowly to feed civilization.
On our last full day in Quebec, we attended a Bourdeaux Wine festival. It was a lot of fun, but also proved to show how little we knew about wine!
What I enjoyed most about this trip was that it was a learning experience. This was a place that I can say truely opened my eyes, in a very positive perspective, towards the people of Canada and the beauty that it can offer.
- I learned that my predisposition to what Canada and Canadians were was way off base - the basis of funny talking, hockey loving, American light can ring true in some circumstances, but Canada as a whole is as culturally diverse as the United States, if not more so, and bears very different peoples in different parts of the country. So much so, that I learned (since we happened to be in Quebec during their elections), that there is still a major party in the Providence of Quebec that are seperatists for the French speaking Canadians. I also learned how much Canadians can be considered different than Americans - the food that they eat, their outlook on life, in some instances (Quebec) the languages that they speak, and their politics.
- I learned that Ninety percent, if not more, of the people live along the border of the states which leaves the majority of the country virtually untamed. The seasons can be very unforgiving and Montreal even has a series of 27 mile of pedestrian tunnels surrounding their underground subway system. You can shop, dine, and live in Montreal in the Winter without stepping foot outside.
- I learned about colonial North America from a different perspective - one that is not taught in our schools. The history of the French colonialism was based on some of the same premises that the United States were founded on, but at the end of the day, the single largest contributor that kept us (Americans) from speaking French, was the fact that French commoners were not as suppressed as the English Commoners during the time that North America was colonialized. The French could not get their people to leave their country to settle in the new terratories, and at the end of the day, during the battles over terratories in the Americas, the French colonials and military were no match for the English because they had been out Colonialized by a population of 10 to 1 (Million to be precise).
- I learned that if you take a primarily French population and you introduce them to verdant land and oustanding game (deer, duck, boars, rabbits and the like), you end up with a culinary gold mine. The food in both Montreal and Quebec was some of the most outstanding food that I have had in my lifetime and we spent an aweful lot of time eating it! From putine and smoked meat sandwiches, to foie gras and rabbit stew, to fresh seasonal fruits, jams, honey, and cheese, to the wine and beer selections - the cuisine was outstanding!!! I can't say it enough.
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