Quebec February 09

Things have been busy here in Canada, we have been busy with the winter chores and some of us have caught the dreaded colds that seem to float around here forever and we have been busy travelling.
We recently went to Quebec for a long weekend with the other exchangees from Australia, we caught a bus from Toronto and travelled all night to arrive in Quebec city at 7.00am in the morning for Breakfast in this very quant old restaurant that reminded me a lot of England. Quebec is a very old city first settled by Europeans so it has a very Old English style of Architecture and feel about it. It is divided into the old Quebec city and the new City and it is nestled on the banks of the St Lawrences river.
It is about 8 hours nrth East of us and because of the water it is very cold with a fierce wind chill factor always evident, needless to say the first day we got there is was -17 but with the windchill felt like -28 it was very cold which made it very hard to walk around outside.
When we arrived we first went to see the Basilica of Sainte-Anne Beaupre a huge church that was built in 1876, it reminded me of Westminster Abbey was very huge but was a working Catholic Church with all the usual beautiful frescos, amazing shrines and artwork. (see first photos below). Quebec was very Catholic so it had huge amounts of Cathedrals and churchs everywhere.
We then went to Montmorency Falls a waterfall higher than Niagara Falls and with all the ice and snow a very Spectacular sight. You can walk up to the draw bridge and walk over the top of them it was absolutely freezing on the day we went there, but very beautiful they look over the River and the amazing bridge to Quebec city.
We left there and went onto our hotel which was the Hilton in the middle of town opposite the Parliament buildings and across fromn the Winter Festival which is what we came to see along with thousands of other visitors, it was like Sydney during the Olympics very crowded, which was weird all these people out on the streets at night and during the day and it was freezing, nothing fazes these Canadians. We went to lunch in the old Quebec city at this beautiful little cafe and unbeknown to us no English is spoken and no english on the Menus, very strange. On all labels and signs and everything in Canada is second labelled french but in Quebec its not it was very odd. Anyway we had a very quant cultural experience the kids loved it thought it was very cool. That evening we went up to the winter Festival and looked around at all the Snow sculptures which were pretty amazing, Steph climbed to the top of the Ice Castle and slid down an ice slippery dip, I had some Cariboo Like (port) in an ice glass served from an Ice bar in Ice glasses which was very cool. We then went for rides on these rafters and tubes down large snow banks a bit like riding a water slide except on snow, very fun and very cold. We had dinner at a restaurant that did Crepes and Fondues and Steph and I shared a 3 course fondue, Cheese, Beef then Chocolate it was lovely. The boys had crepes.
We also walked around the old city and looked at some beautiful shops went the the Chateau Frontignac which is a very old Castle now a hotel in the Old Quebec city. We went for a ride on the tobogan outside the hotel a very fun thing to do and rode on the Furnicula down to the waters edge.
The next day we visited the Ice Hotel which was a bit out of Quebec, it was truly a freak of Architecture. They ship in all these ice bricks from Montreal to build and sculpt amazing walls and structures in the hotel, the actual walls and ceiling are made from packed snow. They build the hotel every year around December when it gets cold enough and it lasts till around the end of March, it costs about $500 to stay the night and you can even get married in the ice Chapel. They had a club inside a bar where they served drink from ice glasses, and you sat and stood on ice chairs and tables. The rooms were small with an ice bed, bedhead, side table and mattress in them. Some of them had carved frescos on the walls and bedheads, it was truly amazing, but sooooo incredibly cold I would never be able to stay there.
So that was our amazing trip to Quebec. Check out the photos below.