NORTH AMERICA TRIP FOR DEN & KEITH, ANG & IAN

MONTREAL (April 28th-29th)

As you travel further east from Ottawa to Quebec province everything starts to look and feel a lot more French, including the road signs. We had already decided in the planning to make our trip to Quebec a bit more authentic by staying in some traditional French hotels.

First up was the ‘boujee’ Hotel Dauphin in Montreal, a perfect location just on the edge of Montreal’s old town. It was only a short drive from Ottawa and after a quick coffee stop we arrived and checked in late afternoon. Den found us a ‘boujee’ French restaurant for dinner and on route to that we were treated to a walk along the beautiful narrow cobblestone streets full of amazing French architecture spanning over four centuries. It wasn’t exactly sunny and warm, maybe 14 degrees, but the locals were walking around in t- shirts and shorts as apparently the week before it had been something like -10 so it probably felt like a balmy summers day to them. Dinner was great and afterwards we walked around the town a bit more, up to the busy Place de Armes square near the Notre- Dame Basilica (built in 1829) and then down towards the river front. Back at the hotel we had a few games of UNO and cards along with the odd glass of wine before turning in.

During our travels we have become pretty good at assessing the quality of hotel breakfasts and we typically run through a series of key questions:

What time are we going to breakfast? (is probably the number 1 question, ha, ha). Are there any scrambled eggs? Is there sugar free cereal? Is there yoghurt? Are there any bananas? Are there any muffins for a lunchtime scooby snack? Are there any fruits, apples, oranges? Are there any nuts? What’s the coffee like?

This one was certainly very ‘boujee’ and French with crepes, breads, cheeses, fruits, boiled eggs, yoghurts and a lot of croissants and banana bread! They also had decent cereal, with lots of nuts and seeds and also plenty of coffee, though the machine was very slow, which was a bit of a nause! Overall though, we were pleasantly impressed.

After breakfast we headed out to the Notre Dame Basilica again and decided on our usual strategy of taking the city hop on hop off tour bus. We have picked up many tour buses in many cities and they all seem to have the same problem, where are the actual stops? It would seem to make sense to us that this should be made as easy as possible. If you can’t find the stop, you can’t take the bus, so this should actually be number one on the bus company’s priority list, but alas no. In practice, if you can first find a bus tour map, which is not always easy, you then need to be an expert in deciphering them as they often bear little or no resemblance to the actual street layout. You can usually see groups of people wandering the city aimlessly trying to locate the stops. Once you eventually find the stop you will be suitably qualified as an international code breaker for the CIA or MI6.

We eventually found the bus stop (not because of any technical skill, this time, but because we saw the bus and chased after it) and then took a nice tour around all the key Montreal sites and there were a lot. It was a bit nippy up top on the bus so we were all well wrapped up. We stopped around half way to get a great view, in the distance, of the Olympic stadium built for the 1976 Olympic Games. After a couple of hours we hopped off and took a walk down the busy Montreal shopping district and had a nice coffee in the Place de Armes, near Notre- Dame watching the people go about their day.

We headed back to the hotel so Ang & Den could colour their hair (ha, ha) accompanied by kettle crisps and red wine. They had more than a few glasses judging by the amount of dye on their faces! We then had dinner in another ‘boujee’ French steak & sea food restaurant in the old town before playing our usual few games of UNO and more red wine.

QUEBEC CITY (April 30th-May 1st)

After another great Frenchy breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and headed off to Quebec City, about a three hour drive, with a compulsory coffee stop on route. Our next hotel was the ‘boujee’ and quaint Chateau Bellevue in the old town, overlooking the river, a fantastic location. To our horror, the entrance to the hotel was via a small ‘ish’ series of steps so we were faced with lugging five 25kg+ suitcases up them to get into the hotel. But we were saved by a very nice gentleman on reception, who as part of the hotel service, took them up the steps all by himself. To be fair, it was pretty impressive, but unfortunately we never saw him again during our stay as apparently he had gone off sick with strained shoulder, leg and back ligaments (chuckle).

We went out for a little walk in the town and found a nice ‘boujee’ French restaurant that we booked for dinner. Quebec City is a lot smaller than Montreal and it certainly seems to be even more French in its culture and yes, you guessed it, there are a lot more bronze statues. The main building in the town is the Chateau Frontenac which is this enormous building/hotel built in 1893 that dominates the skyline. It is built in a ‘Chateauesque’ style which apparently means a revivalist architectural style based on French Renaissance architecture from the late 15th to 17th century. None of us know what any of that means, but it sounds impressive and basically it’s a very nice looking building. Some more pub quiz knowledge (well more like mastermind), is that the hotel was the place that Churchill and Roosevelt (USA President) met twice to draw up the D- Day plans way back in 1943 and 1944 (you have to admit that bit is pretty cool eh).

The city looks out onto the St Lawrence river, which was a main channel for ships to come inland, friend and foe. The city is guarded by an impressive huge stone wall facing the river to protect it with lots of cannons and that was originally built by the French and improved by the British. Quebec City was the site of a major war in 1775 with the Americans aiming to make Canada their fourteenth colony and secure the northern flank against the British forces. The Brits prevailed though (hooray!), probably because of their big wall. Not only do you get pub quiz knowledge from the blog, but you also get some GCSE revision for 18th century American history, not bad eh?

Breakfast the next day was great, very French and similar to Montreal, minus the massive selection of croissants, which was probably a good thing as with all the driving our daily step count was a bit down. We headed out into the old town, actually found the right bus stop, mainly because the centre is quite small, and then headed off into the cold sunshine for, as usual, a very informative tour of the city and its surrounding areas.

After the tour we stopped for a nice coffee in one of the little cafes in the street and had another walk round the town, before heading back to the hotel for chill time. For dinner we had booked another ‘boujee’ restaurant which served great food including Elk, Moose, Pork and Venison pie and it was delicious. Dessert was a few games of UNO accompanied by red wine back at the Chateau.

We reflected on the French side of Canada and all agreed how stunning the architecture was, how great the food culture was, with all the small restaurants and cafes lining the narrow cobblestone streets and of course how many bronze statues they have. We were very lucky and grateful to have visited and it’s definitely a place you would come back to.

We were checking out in the morning and driving south to the border to return to the USA, heading to Boston Massachusetts.