Chateau Frontenac – October 24 2013
The view out the window of great Canadian waterways, autumnal coloured leaves, Anne of Green Gables houses and the red roofed barns reminds me why I love train travel. We are on our way to what looks like the stunning Ville de Quebec. Mimi is incredibly helpful and gave us a lovely book to take with us this morning so we could read all about Quebec – whilst some of my school girl French is coming back, I am not sure it is good enough to know anything about Quebec City from Mimi’s book beyond beaux paysages. The Laurentian Mountains are in the distance but not yet snow covered. As we tramped up through Vieux Quebec, past the fortified city walls, we could have been in a rather glorious part of Europe. The World Heritage tag for this beautiful city seems justly deserved. This part of the world continues to create confusion – With 95% of the people of Quebec City speaking French, and the amazing Chateau Frontenac dominating the city, you really have to be convinced this is Canada, not France. The Queen Mary 2 was in port so the confusion continued, whether I was caught in some re-enactment of the Titanic –she was huge sitting beneath the towering Chateau that has the reputation as the most photographed hotel in the world – images of Churchill and Roosevelt there in 1943 and Hitchcock filming in 1953 made it a memorable day.
Sleeping under the stars 