My dear friends

I know there’s no excuse why this report comes so late, but still I have to say I have been so busy the last 2 weeks and as you will read in this report (if you have the courage to read it all), you will see that I didn’t really have the time and opportunity to write while I was in Quebec and Montreal. As there’s so much to tell, I will write this report in 2 pieces. Today I’ll let you enjoy my adventures in Quebec city:

Quebec city

As said in a previous post, I stayed with Anne, her brother and her parents in Quebec City. All of them very wonderful and hospitable people. I actually was their first couchsurfer. A great honor to be their guest for 3 nights.

The first day I arrived in Quebec, I took some time to get to know Anne and after a delicious dinner, we went out for a drink together with Sara, a friend of Anne. We first visited a bar that had a great choice of beers, Quebec special beers as well as beers from all over the world (a fine selection of Belgian beers by the way!). I drank the beer ‘La fin du monde‘, a very strong beer (9%), but wauw, so delicious! It was a great feeling to know that I would find some very tasty beers in Quebec as after all I am a beer lover. After that we went to a smaller pub where a singer was performing. He sang lots of famous songs in Quebeqois, the French they speak in Quebec. I am not so French oriented, but I have to admit that I liked the music. Even though it was no metal at all Nice night. Both Anne and Sara were very good company for my first night in Quebec!

The morning after, we got up not too late to make a trip to the beautiful Parc de Jacques Cartier. This is a provincial park about 30 minutes from Quebec City. We were lucky that Anne’s mother didn’t need the car, so we could drive there. Once we got off the highway, the road to the park was beautiful. Long straight roads, beautiful green hills and only some houses, most of them away from the road. Lucky people who live there! Only a half hour away from Quebec City and yet so quiet and beautiful. Anyway, we got to Parc de Jacques Cartier and drove to the main building to decide which walk we would do. We chose a trail that would take about 1 hour, not to heavy. We’re not experienced hitchers after all. Well what can I say… As soon as we started walking, the beauty of the area struck me. 360° around me there was nature, beautiful nature. A big river cut the landscape, leaving green hills or mountains on both sides. Absolutely breathtaking. The trail had some very nice lookout areas where we discovered even more beautiful places. Incredible.

We returned to the main building and decided to have lunch. Anne had prepared a delicious picnick for us. We were hungry and ate it all Energy for a next hike. The next hike was a longer one. We had to drive a few kilometers back to start the trail. This trail was a little tougher and took longer too, but we got the experience now, so why not? It was indeed heavier, but it was well worth the effort. At different points we had an incredible view of the valley. Beautiful. For me there are no words to describe it. Really. That is why I took some pictures. Check them out. Follow this link.

After this breathtaking (both literally and figuratively speaking) walk, we drove back home. Ready for a culinary adventure, we went to Ashton’s. This is the place to be in Quebec to eat a Poutine. Now I hear some of you ask themselves: What the heck is a Poutine? Well it’s something typically from Quebec. As Wikipedia says, it’s a dish consisting of French fries topped with fresh cheese curds and covered with hot gravy (usually brown gravy). It doesn’t look too tasty, but it is DE-LI-CI-OUS! A lot of people told me to try the Poutine, but as Christine (my host in Gatineau) told me, I should wait until I was in Quebec. She was right. It was a feast! One thing was sure: This would not be the last poutine I ate. I was right… But more about that later.

In the evening there was a free concert not far from Anne’s house. We decided to check it out and it turned out to be fun and interesting. It was a band from Quebec and they played famous 70’s and 80’s songs, but most of them translated in French. Very special, very Québequois, but very good. The night flew by.

And then it was already Wednesday! Time flies when you having fun. Today, Anne had some stuff to do for school, so I decided to go explore the city by myself. Anne gave me directions on the map and I took off. The weather was good (almost too good as the sky was too clear to take good pictures… again) and it was hot. I took the bus to downtown Quebec where I got off in the city centre. I walked in the main street of the city and then took a left to the ‘touristic’ area. Very crowded, but so beautiful. Gorgeous old buildings in small and cosy streets. This is how I like my cities. Really! After walking around there for a while, I got hungry and decided to take lunch. On a very nice square, there was a pizzeria and as a lover of Italian food, I was already seated before most people could blink their eyes. I ordered a small pizza with pepperoni and a ‘Blanche de Chambly’, a great wheat beer, brewn by Unibroue. After a while, the waiter came to me to apologize because it took so long for my pizza to be ready. The chef had made a mistake and made me the wrong pizza. But no worries, the waiter said: You can have this pizza for free while you wait for the one you ordered. Good news as the small pizza was actually very small I ate the delicious 2 for the price of one pizzas, had another beer and took off again to explore the rest of the city.

I walked along the beautiful Chateau Frontenac, on a nice wooden sidewalk high above the river, decended towards the river, walked along it, climbed back up, … I can’t really say where I went because I never followed the map, but every single place I did was beautiful. One thing is for sure: I love Quebec City! I ended in the centre, had a (not so good) falafel in a Libanese restaurant and as I got out of the restaurant, a thunderstorm was unleashed above Quebec City. It started to rain heavily, lightning struck everywhere and it was cold. I decided to take the bus back to Anne’s place. Good decision as the weather even got worse. Or at least for a while. And now the reason why there was no report for Quebec City on this blog: When I got back to Anne’s place, the Internet was down. Apparently the lightning must have struck somewhere and caused the Internet to go down. None of her friends in Quebec City had Internet connection too. A big breakdown… Certainly as I was expecting news from future hosts in Montreal… The day after I was supposed to go to Montreal, so I was in desperate need of hosts. The only thing I could hope for is that the problem would be solved quickly.

In the mean time, Anne had decided to arrange something else for me. We drove to the other side of the river where we picked up Marie-Eve, a friend of hers. She knew her way around in Lévis, a small city next to Quebec City. We drove to Lévis to a place where we had a nice view of the old Quebec. My two friends had picked this place because they both knew I loved photography. Sadly enough it started raining again when we got there, so we took off. We drove to one of the girl’s favourite places: A very famous ice cream shop where their speciality is ice cream dipped in melted chocolate. A thick layer of chocolate! I chose the maple ice cream (of course made with maple syrup flavour) with dark chocolate. AMAZING! DELICIOUS! This must have been the best ice cream I have ever eaten. Yummy!

After having enjoyed the delicious ice cream, we walked to a point where we could see the city even better. And above all: it was dark. We had a beautiful view of Quebec, with all the buildings bathing in light. The Chateau Frontenac overlooking the river. I took some nice shots of the skyline before we drove back. Before we went home, Marie-Eve invited me into her place to let me taste some delicious maple butter and some very special maple syrup. Now I know why Canadians love sweet things. This stuff is incredible! What a great end to a great day.

On Thursday morning, the Internet worked again, but no response from the people I wrote to. This basically meant that I didn’t have a place to sleep in Montreal. Oops… I decided that I would have to sleep in a hostel for a few nights until I found someone that wanted to host me. I wrote down some addresses of Montreal hostels, said goodbye to Anne and took the bus to Montreal. It was really a depressing day: Grey, rainy, cold. I was sad to leave wonderful Quebec and drive to the big city without even having a place to sleep. I really didn’t feel well at all.

As it is getting late, I will save my adventures in Montreal for later. I hope to write that report before the end of the week. And believe me, it’s worth checking out. Stay tuned for this one!

Oh and yes, I uploaded some more pictures about Quebec City.

Better late than never they say! I hope you all enjoyed reading this report. One more report to come from my Canada travels.

Cheers!

Steven

(sad to be back in Belgium)