Before I move on from Quebec City, I really should take this opportunity to mention the annual Quebec Winter Carnival - an event which takes place in January or February and has now become the largest and most famous winter carnival in the world. If you're in the region at the time, this isn't something you're going to want to miss. Every year, people come from all around to take part in the festivities, which include an ice sculpture contest in which teams of s...

From the falls, we drove onto a strange little road out of town which was so narrow that some of the roofs of the roadside houses had huge chunks out of them where passing lorries and coaches had struck them - I had to wonder why they didn't simply ban large vehicles from that particular route and tell them to go another way. I don't suppose the residents of the homes along the road can feel particularly secure living in a house that may come crumbling down at an...

If you think it's cold in England, you should pay a visit to Quebec during the winter. From what the guide on our tour of the city this morning was telling us, the first snow usually falls here in late November and it doesn't stop snowing until sometime around June - this means that, a lot of the time, parts of the province are covered in snow to a depth of up to fifteen feet. I'll just say that again - fifteen feet. This means,of course, that the snowdrifts ou...

Entering French Canada really can be quite a confusing experience for anyone who lists their first language as English, especially those crossing directly over the border from the United States who must think they've stepped into a totally different world. Crossing the border on my first trip to Canada a few years ago was a hellish experience, although on that occasion this began at customs before I had even encountered the language barrier. The border guards a...