Quebec City

One of the gates into the old town
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No, we did not take another trip to Paris, but instead to Quebec City. (that’s pronounced “Kebec” by the way). The city is as close to France as you can get in North America and is strictly french-speaking (technically Quebecois) as is most all of the province of Quebec. Even the hotels were small, cramped and overpriced – just like in France.

We found the old town to be quite charming as it sits above the beautiful St Lawrence river and is surrounded by a wall that fortified the city and has been very well preserved. Our only disappointment was that there weren’t any sidewalk creperies as we had found in Paris! We were a bit surprised to find that many of the historical plaques throughout the city were done only in French and not also in English. Though the more we learned about the history, the more we understood why. A bill was passed in 1977 defining French as the sole primary language of the Quebec province. Many in the Quebec province have also fought for independence from Canada, but the last referendum vote in 1994 came just short of passing (by less than 1%). Perhaps the funniest thing was that all of the KFC fast food chain restaurant signs were reading PFK (Poulet Frit Kentucky) and we’ve never seen that in any other country.

Vive la France!

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One of our days, we chose to get out of the city and see some of the fall colors which must have been at their peak and were absolutely stunning. We had heard of a trail just to the east of the city in St. Anne-Beaupre. Funny thing was we couldn’t find it (the Mestashibo trail), but luckily we found a nice young lady to direct us to the church in the small town nearby where the trail starts just behind the church. She joked that they try to keep it a local secret and apparently they do a pretty good job. The trail was great and runs along a river gorge. Unfortunately we couldn’t complete the whole trail due to time, but really enjoyed the portion that we did.

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Our favorite meal in Quebec was at Aspara - where we got a taste for Cambodian and Vietnamese cuisine before our trip to Asia this fall. We absolutely loved it.

Next, we make our way to Niagara Falls…

Tidbit of the day:

In Quebec, they define a Francophone as one where French is the mother tongue. An anglophone is one who has English as the mother tongue.