Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Quebec City, Canada
Having booked a tour of the outlying region need to get out of bed super early. A shock to the system. Have got used to a regular lie in, dear reader. The revitalising properties of a mug of tea and a crispy bacon buttie soon wakes me up.
Manage to grab the middle seat of the back row on the tour bus. Long legs need to be stretched out. Bus driver drives one handed as he holds the microphone in the other hand. So that’ll be safe. He sounds exactly like the Elvis impersonator on BBC Radio 2’s Steve Wright Show. Could almost be him.
Short drive to the Montmorency Falls. Accessed by a long steep staircase with 487 steps. Or, for the more intelligent, a cable car. A no brainer. The cascade of 83m is actually 33m higher than Niagra Falls but nowhere near as wide. Cable car arrives at the top and greeted by a large white villa. The Manoir Montmorency. Constructed in 1780 by the Governor and Commander of British Forces in Quebec Province and modelled on the architecture of French influenced Louisiana style buildings in the Deep South of America. Merely as a summer retreat. They do like their views these Brits. Perched overlooking the falls and the St Lawrence River and the Ile d’Orleans. Small island in the middle of the river. Not a bad view to wake up to.
Crossing onto the Ile d’Orleans reminds me of Hornby Island and a scheduled stop at a chocolate factory would be interesting. Were it not sadly lacking in any form of chocolate making. The food theme continues at Marie’s Bakery back on the mainland. This is more like it. Fresh homemade bread, spread with homemade Maple Butter. Gently melting into the warm bread. Mouth watering yet, dear reader? Maple Butter is a very sweet mixture with a similar texture to condensed milk flavoured with maple syrup. Have to have a second slice just to check the taste again.
Having been to Lourdes and seen the hysterical nonsense that pervades the place, you can imagine my cynicism as we visit Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. A well known Basilica famous for the healing properties of St Anne. A couple of columns at the entrance have a number of crutches, sticks and assorted cripple paraphernalia. Purported to be left by the miraculously cured. Bloody nonsense. Still a cynical old sod. Quite ornate inside and a further worship hall is located in the basement. Bit like being in an overflow car park.
Across the road is the world famed Jerusalem Cyclorama. One of the world’s largest murals. Intrigued, I pay the CA$9 entrance fee. What a waste of money. A 360 degree painting on the wall of biblical scenes with cardboard cut-outs in the foreground. The sort last seen in a Paddington Bear TV programme in the 1970s.
Being someone that can manage to be at an exact location at exactly the specified time, it irritates the hell out of me when you rush something so as not to be late for the others. You know. Out of respect for others waiting. So. You can imagine how irritating it is when someone doesn’t turn up at the prescribed time. We wait. And wait. And wait. And wait some more. It’s the sodding wife of one of the blokes. And she’s not even French. It’s usually the French who are late isn’t it. He’s managed to lose her. Either by accident or design. If it were me, it’d be by design. Having chatted with her earlier. Someone lends him their phone so he can ring his wife. She’s in a sodding souvenir shop. Twenty minutes later we depart for a visit to a copper workshop and demonstration of copper ‘engraving’. Which is really rather good. Everything is done by the family. The father, Gilles, set it up years ago and when he died the wife and daughter continued the business. The ‘engraving’ is done by pressing down on the soft copper with metal tools to create a relief on the other side of various flowers, artistic shapes and objects featuring animals like cockerels.
Back in Quebec City, video call with my favourite colleague, mucker and drinking buddy, we’ll call him Nick (‘cos he wants his 15 minutes of fame in this blog) and am fully informed about General Wolfe, the British Commander at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City, on account of him watching a recent TV programme about the battle. A second foray to the battle site is now required to visit the Wolfe Monument. It being a hot day, in need of an ice cream. Nearest place is the Art Gallery cafe next to the monument.
“Do you sell ice-cream?”
“No. But I can do you a smoothie which has ice-cream in it.”
Erm…
