Friendly Quebec City

Hi there. Quebec City’s lovely old French style architecture, colorful gardens, friendly people, and expansive views combined to make our recent first visit a very pleasurable experience. Regrettably, I’ve managed to make my best Quebec City photographs disappear. Rats! I have a few to share, however.

Just off Place de la FAO in lower Quebec City

The scene above was right across from our hotel in Vieux-Port (Old Port) in lower Quebec City. I discovered, after someone directed me to head uptown, that “uptown” is not just a euphemism for heading north. It really does mean UP. As in uphill. There are meandering ways to walk uptown, and there are steep ways.

Looking uphill from the marina in lower part of Quebec City

When you get pretty far uphill, to one of the highest points of Basse-Ville (Lower Town), you’ll find yourself by the elaborately turreted Chateau Frontenac (not pictured here), a National Historic Site of Canada. The spectacular size of the 600 room Chateau Frontenac hotel may actually beat the square footage of an IKEA store. There’s a promenade behind it that runs high above the edges of the Saint Lawrence River. Not far from there, you can take a funicular to Haute-Ville (Upper Town) for even grander views. That’s what we did.

Agreeing to ride the funicular up was a minor victory for me in my fear of heights. A baby step, anyway. Another one was walking on the bridge over the Montmorency Falls (a visit I posted about a few days ago), although I have to admit that all the railings throughout the Montmorency Parc were so well designed and fortified that I never once imagined slipping through them!

I was impressed to notice how conversations flowed freely back and forth between French and English, with words from either language being substituted whenever clarity called for it. Because of that I found it easy to work on my French. If I could speak an entire sentence in French except for one or two words, nobody seemed to give a darn if I just interjected an English word. The Quebecois relaxed attitude about mixing languages made it a friendly, non-pressured environment for picking up French words and expressions.

This lovely old city has modern public art sprinkled throughout it. All my photos of that, as well as of the promenade and its views, are among the ones lost, but I did retain one interesting shot. I noticed this winged jumper on our last night there:

A rooftop in Quebec City

This life-size cut-out photograph, mounted and propped up from behind, was dramatically backlit. About 5 stories above us, it was a great visual surprise on an overcast night.

Cheers,

Paula

Paula Ogier Artworks