A story of two little pigs and their travels: Quebec City and back to Montrèal

Quebec City

A poor shot of part of Quebec City's skyline

After bidding our American friends goodbye in Toronto, we took a plane to the heart of French Canada, Quebec City. When we landed at the newly upgraded international airport, we immediately felt like we had entered a different country.

Quebec City is even more French than Montreal. It's the oldest city in North America and quite frankly, we felt like we were somewhere in Europe! Quebec's stately and historic capital is celebrating its 400th anniversary as a city this year and so both the Canadian government and the provincial government have poured bucketloads of money into promoting tourism to Quebec City in 2008.

The old part of Quebec City is surrounded by a fortified wall originally built by the French in the 1700s and then fortified again by the British when the American Revolutionaries attempted to capture Quebec City.

View from atop the wall

Visiting in summer, it was difficult for us to find accomodation that wouldn't blow our budget, but we managed to score a couple of nights at a hostel in the old walled part of Quebec City. Before we arrived we were warned by many people that we would find it difficult to get around because nobody would be willing to speak English to us, but we found that with so many tourists in Quebec this year, people were friendly and more than willing to help us get around - especially if they could see us making an effort to use what little French we knew.

St Louis street, and one of the entrances into the walled part of the city

Quebec City reminded us of what we imagine Paris to be like

Assemblée législative du Québec (National Assembly or Parliament). It's really only a provincial assembly, but don't tell that to a Quebecois!

The National Assembly room

St Jean-Baptistè Church

The cheapest meal for two ever! Despite everything being overly expensive in Quebec, this meal at a bakery only cost $4.41

Hope Gate

The pier where the 400th year anniversary celebrations are happening

View of the wall from the harbour

Pigs in Quebec City

The Château Frontenac, which is now a hotel

The streets are very European

Jetstar jumps in Quebec City!

Every night at 10pm the best light show we had ever seen was put on at the Espace 400 (harbour). A bunch of silos were used as a backdrop for the images. Coupled with an awesome soundtrack, it told the story of Quèbec City over the last 4 centuries. It was basically like sitting in front of a very, very big movie screen!

Due to the lighting at night, it was very difficult to get a good photo of the light show.

Welcome to the classiest McDonalds ever

As part of the celebrations, huge big name artists perform all year round. Paul McCartney was performing a free concert the night of the day we left (hence the reason there was no accomodation). We took a walk up to the park in which the concert was going to happen just to have a peek.

The stage where some soundchecking was going on

Posing with one of the unflinching guards at the Citadelle

Back to Montrèal

We left Quebec City to spend our last few days in Canada just chilling out in Montreal. We decided to relax over the next few days, meet some people at our hostel and try and catch up on this blog.

The train ride across Quebec revealed some amazing Canadian countryside.

Our view as we thunder across a bridge

A river

Farms littered the countryside between cities

Despite the fact that most people out here only speak French, this could be any North American farm

As we leave the tracks behind

After a few days in Quebec City, Montrèal seemed so much less French than it did the first time we were in town.

Montrèal

The Montrèal Metro

At Mont Royal Park

We pose at the Chateau lookout on Mont Royal

View of Montrèal from the lookout

This little squirrel at a whole apple core

A Jetstar jump at Mont Royal

Every Sunday, Sunday random people (mostly hippies) gather at Parc Jeanne-Mance to play drums, twirl sticks and generally hang out. We decided to check out the action.

Some of the drummers were good, others were truly in their own little world

This is officially the most random dude we saw. He was a terrible drummer but was probably high on something. He has a mop to die for.

A view of Mont Royal from Avenue du Parc

We met some really cool people back at our lovely hostel and made some great friends. One rainy day a bunch of us decided to try our indoor rock climbing.