Quebec - May 6th

We had a very nice dinner at a "Vietnamese/Thai" place here last night. Food was very food quality, fresh and plentiful enough that we ended up taking left overs back to the fridge in the RV for another day.

Had a nice tour of the city, and saw many of the spectacular sites around. Quebec is a remarkable and beautiful city. It has a very European feeling to it, and is the convergence of French and English cultures, in the new world. Distilling down the history from the tours, the basic story is that "Quebec is local Indian for 'Where the river narrows'. Since this river is the outlet of the great lakes, it is of strategic significance. Further, there is a large rock along the water that makes for a great natural defense. When Champlaigne saw the location, he realized its strategic significance, and defensibility, and so had a fort and then city built here. Later, the English invaded, and took it from the French by discovering a secret path up the rock."

The only complications with the tour were that we managed to forget to bring the camera (so had to buy a disposable one for picts, which obviously won't be blogged), and the other complication was that Delilah had finally gotten to the end of her rope with lack of sleep, and had a meltdown in a cafe. The good news is we were able to take her out, let her wale it out for a while, then once she got it out of her system, all was well again.


We left the tour in the uptown old city, and walked back, then swam in the pool here (indoor, and somewhat heated), and then hired a baby sitter for the evening. B and I then wandered back to the old town, and had a romantic dinner at a Moroccan place - another great meal. Picture of B dining - note that little tea pot has a pot holder on the handle with a mans face and fez on his head. Cute touch.

Quebec has been a beautiful and very enjoyable place, which we will return to some day - but between all the eating out, and hotelling, and perhaps a bit of shopping, it has been a budget buster (as if we actually had some sort of budget). That said, considering travel is our vice, we could have much worse vices...

Tomorrow, on the road again. We will need to replace the spare tire at some point, and hope to get in to New York for the Adirondacks area and museums.