Changing Cities

Thurs. 1^st October ’26

Today we move from Montreal to Québec, not far apart in distance but miles apart in culture. Québec is much more French in both language used and feel. However most locals are able to switch seamlessly between French and English. It is a nightmare squeezing our car out of the car park due to people double parking and the size of our 7-seater Chrysler Pacifica monster (La Bête Rouge). We then hit the Montreal traffic and road signage. Even with Google maps navigation and two pairs of eyes we still take a wrong turn into roadworks and crawl along for at least 15 minutes.

The upside is we are on the south side of the St Lawrence River, which was the original plan. We will return on the north side in a few weeks time on our return journey. Even out of the city driving is quite tiring on the two lane dual carriageway as it is busy and the lorries drive as fast as the cars. We divert off the main road so St Croix where we find a great little café serving soup and sandwiches. This is on the banks of the St Lawrence River so we take a post lunch walk to the waterfront and discover a little waterfall. We are glad to be back in the quiet countryside.

Québec traffic is as mad as Montreal, so we ditch La Bête with valet parking as we don’t fancy using any of the underground car parks in Old Town. Québec Old Town with all the sights we want is all within walking distance and much more “cutesy” than Montreal. The down side is there is less space for all the tourists to squeeze into!! We head out near sundown to see the classic sight of Le Chateau Frontenac (Aka Fairmont Hotel). It is huge and we are glad we did not stump up their room rate to stay there. Their sister hotel in Lake Louise was such a lovely hotel it would be hard to match that experience.

I head down the far end of Dufferin Terrace and play with the composition of wooden planks and cannons, with minimal people. Dave stayed near the Funicular entrance where there was a musician playing and tourists by the dozen and had less fun. We are relieved to head back to our hotel where we have a restaurant reservation. It is quite serene and peaceful with live jazz musicians playing and a great place to chill out. We had not realized the menu was small plates for sharing but really enjoyed the halibut cheeks dish and the scallops with cauliflower. No carbs, so leaves room for breakfast tomorrow which we hope will be equally good.