Plunging into New France

Any pretence of Canada having two official languages disappears as soon as you cross the border into Quebec. Here, you enter New France and all bilingual signage is replaced by the French language only. That's not to say that people are not capable in two languages! Almost everyone we deal with are pretty adept at English, meaning shopkeepers, waitpersons and hotel staff. People are also friendly, so they talk to you in the street, and that's where we discover that some have no English. Perhaps surprisingly, this includes young folk. English is seemingly not required in schools.

The colourful Theatre Princesse building is one of the highlights of Rue Lafontaine.

Our first overnight in Quebec was at Rivière-Du-Loup, selected for no other reason than it was the first decent sized town on the Gulf of St. Lawrence, after our long drive from Fredericton. On arrival, it started snowing quite heavily, putting an end to a sunny day. Our hotel was a brand new and ultra modern Best Western with a view of the Fleuve St Lawrence, unlike any other Best Western we have seen! For dinner, we walked 2km into town and found that the main street, Rue Lafontaine, was both bustling and pretty. We were in the hunt for smoked salmon, which the area is renowned for. The restaurant we chose, Estaminet, proved to be very popular with the locals, and we were lucky to get a table. The drinks were warming and the tucker was good!

Next morning, we discovered how really nice the unheralded town of Rivière-Du-Loup is. The town was as cute as a button, with tons of snow around and more falling heavily. It was preparing for Sculpture Sur Neige, where dozens of snow sculptures were being carved by teams of young people in Rue Lafontaine. We talked to one crew, they spoke excellent English, and it turned out that one of the team had worked at the Cable Beach Resort in Broome. He showed us the clay model for their carving, and said he hoped we would vote for it.

We had a good chat with the friendly crew working on this Sculpture Sur Neige entry.

Raw materials falling from the sky as this snow sculpture is carved.

And, thanks to Yelp yet again, we tracked down a cappucino. The barista was originally from the Dominican Republic (certainly a change in climate!). We chatted with him and he said he first realised we were not from North America when we prescribed a decent cappucino formula, basically small, skim milk, dry (not much milk), strong and delivered in a real cup.

Excellent coffee and friendly convesation at this Riviere-Du-Loup bakery.

Mike's Restaurant is housed in this beautiful building.

For our drive to Quebec City, we avoided the freeway but tracked down Route 132 which runs closer to the St. Lawrence and passes through a myriad of interesting towns. This was a good decision, and we had a delightful day covering the 200km, stopping here and there. The weather was mostly snowy, and the roads were pretty well covered, but we were travelling slowly, frequently pulling over to allow faster local traffic to pass. The towns were quite fascinating. Ploughs were about, but they couldn't really keep up. By the time we got to Quebec City, it was snowing heavily again.

Pine trees line this snow-covered section of Route 132.

Snow plough working against the odds on Route 132 to Quebec City.

House in downtown Saint-Jean-Port-Joli.

Many large and beautiful churches line Route 132, often double spired with bells like this one. Standing seam roofing must have been a blessed invention.

We did make one navigational blunder. We hadn't told our Garmin navigator to avoid ferries, and so it guided us to one which would have cut about 25km off the journey, the first bridge being somewhat past Quebec City. We followed an interesting road down the riverside cliff to the ferry terminal, watched a parked ferry for a while, and decided against it. We still aren't sure if the ferry actually carries vehicles, at least in winter. Pedestrians were boarding, but no sign of any cars. There should have been magnificent views of Quebec City from here, but unfortunately, there was a thick pea soup running.

Looking across the ice floe covered St Lawrence from the Levis ferry terminal to Quebec City and the Chateau Frontenac hotel. Major use of Photoshop to reduce the fog in this pic!