From the Observatoire
Climb every mountain
28 August 2007
When you think of Canada you tend to think - cold. Four hundred years ago the French were not quite certain whether or not they really wanted this huge tract of snow covered forest, yet in the summer it can be very hot and our first morning was greeted by a clear blue sky and t-shirt weather.
At this moment I discovered that my camcorder didn't want to work. It kept telling me that the lens cap was on despite the fact that it wasn't. It would play back a tape but couldn't see anything to record a new one. Disaster !
Next stop was breakfast. From our limited experience it would appear that the norm in Canada is that you pay a set sum and then eat as much as you can within the range of items you have purchased. This is fine unless you are like JJ and I. A coffee and a bowl of cereal. You just don't get value for money, especially by the time you go through the Canadian ritual of adding on tax and then the tip.
Tipping is a time honoured custom in Canada. I was talking to one of the waitresses in Toronto about the French minimum wage (which is about €8,50) and she told me that she was getting CA$6.95 an hour which works out at about €5. The staff depend on their tips for a decent wage.
Thankfully for us we found a bakers called Paillard opposite the hotel where we could pay for just what we wanted - decent coffee and croissants.
Taking to the streets I soon realised that doing something about the camcorder was not going to be easy so I left Jean-Jacques to go and do his own thing whilst I went off in search of a camera shop.
To cut my story short - after hours of walking up and down hills and seeing quite a lot of Québec I still hadn't managed to find anywhere. The old town of Québec is beautiful but it is boutiques rather than supermarkets.
I got fed up and decided to walk back up to the ramparts to see if I could get the thing to work whilst at least sitting down in the sun. As I reached the place where I had left JJ hours earlier I noticed that although the shop window was not very bright and appeared to be filled with radio controlled super trucks that there were also small signs for JVC and Sony on the window.
I walked in to take a look to discover that the camera shop I had been searching for all morning had been right behind me as I had said goodbye to JJ ! We couldn't get the camcorder to work so I bought a new one - the cheapest JVC I could get (I thought that it would use the same batteries as I already had - wrong).
Jean-Jacques goes walkabout
Meanwhile back at the ranch, JJ was doing as much walking as I was taking a tour of the upper town. He took a ride up to the 31st floor of the Observatoire which gives a fantastic view over the town and St Laurent river from a height of 221 metres.
There is a good display of photographs of the town in all seasons as well as a copy of one of the Governor's chairs. They make a new one each time they get a new Governor (who represents the Queen). The arms appeared to have been well pushed out and I assume that this has been caused by the size of some of those trying to sit in it.
On our last day he went back again with me and the few dollars admission was well worth it.
It was odd to see him called President De Gaulle
Québec feels like a huge park with buildings in it and its hillside positioning on the bluff of the river really does set it off.
There are lots of modern buildings here but not too many skyscrapers and there are plenty of older buildings to give the town a sense of history.
From the Observatoire he had, like me, walked out onto the Plains of Abraham or Battlefield Memorial Park. In 1759 an English Army led by General Wolfe defeated the local garrison of General Montcalm changing the future of Canada forever.
The location is now the largest public park in North America and contains not only the British Citadelle but statues to a number of famous French people including Joan of Arc and General de Gaulle.
Worn out by a lot of tramping the pair of us met up in the evening in the bar opposite our hotel for a beer.
We had a choice worthy of any Belgian bar at prices worthy of any Swedish one. I really had to go back to my school days to remember that 10 ounces make a half pint which seemed to be an odd way to drink Belgian beer.
We stuck to the local brews and were once again well impressed by the ales and white beers.
And so our first real day in Canada came to an end. JJ liked the fact that they speak French and I liked the fact that they way they speak it sounds terrible. Forget la belle France, it come out more as Frynce in Québéois. We could have been back in Champion at Hesdin on an English Bank Holiday.
See also