Quebec, Canada

Bonjour!

We returned a few days ago from Montreal and Quebec City, in Canada.  Actually in "Quebec," which is also the province.  They speak more French there, we found out, than they do in Paris-- (what?)  Yes, they actually cater more to English-speakers in Paris than in Montreal.

(NOTE: if you single-click on the photos, you can see them bigger.  Much better, if you can get it to work on your computer.)

Beautiful, beautiful.  What a nice place!  And for the most part, there ARE a lot of English-speakers.  We attended church Sunday, and listened to the service in French.  It's kind of cool, though, when you see it in print or hear certain words, you can find similarities to English words, and "kind of" figure out what some things mean.

BASILICA.  Montreal has a grand and ornate cathedral downtown.  Downtown Montreal does feel European, with cobblestone streets and outdoor markets.  Here is one of the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal.

OLYMPICS 1976.  They had the Olympics in Montreal.  Remember this gymnast?

BOTANICAL GARDENS.  Now they have turned the whole Olympic complex into beautiful botanical gardens.  Here are a few of the things we saw there.

INSECTARIUM.  Next to the Gardens was an Insectarium.  Thousands of insect specimens, some of them live.  Here are some of the non-live ones.

1 in 4 living creatures on this earth is a beetle!!!!!

 

Rhino beetle.  Wild, huh!

TOWER.  They also have this cool elevator-ride tower you can take to the top of the world, or close to it!  You can see great views of the city.

TEMPLE.  We stopped by the temple on our way out of town.  It wasn't open that day.

QUEBEC CITY.  This has a really pretty skyline and "old town" feel, again with the cobblestone streets.  We ate dinner at a cafe-type place, and our server offered to take our picture.  The photo itself turned out dark and grainy (I had taken it off of "automatic" and the settings were wrong for the lighting).  But I'm including it because I just noticed the guy at the table behind us.  HE wanted to be in our picture too!  See him?

Photo Bomb, I suppose... :)

 CIRCQUE du SOLEIL.  The unexpected surprise of the trip was to be told by the lady at the information booth was that the Cirque du Solei does a show every night in Quebec City.  Ticket holders get seats in this outdoor theater.  But if you're willing to stand in line and roll the dice on getting in or not, they let people stand and see the show for free.

So...there were a ridiculous number of people waiting for the free-standing-room-only spots.  Like 4,000. Really.  But we were amongst the first 1000, I would guess, that were allowed in.  The whole show was either up in the air over your head, or high on the stage in front of you so your view was awesome, no matter where you were!  So we stood.  It was a very fun show.

MONTMORENCY FALLS.  We hiked around and down the side of a pretty waterfall.  Their "Claim to Fame" is that it's 30 feet taller than Niagara Falls.

Also of note: Kara has braces now! Round 3 for the Whitesells.

Bonus: rainbow in the mist!

In the winter the spray freezes, and forms a huge ice-mountain.  We saw pictures of this.  But of course in August it's just spray.

ARTWORK.  Oh, and here is a great painting on the wall of a building, in downtown Quebec City!  Go ahead, click on it to enlarge it.  It's amazing. :)

 

So, that gives you a taste of our trip.  It's always a treat to have a change of pace in a different environment.  I am not a huge fan of loooooooooong road trips, but this was a good hop across the northern border.

Have a great week! Kari