Letter from Quebec

We landed mid-afternoon at the Quebec City airport. It was small and easily navigable. We've developed a strong affection for small planes and small airports. I had reserved a car and a GPS to go with it.

TADOUSSEC HOTEL

Our destination was the village of Tadoussec, which perched on the far bank of the Sanguenay Fiord, three hours north-east of the city. The GPS did a pretty good job of getting us across Quebec and out on to the highway that runs parallel to the St Lawrence Seaway. But she (most GPSs are “shes”) was a bit eccentric and she mangled French names unapologetically (perhaps because we had opted for instructions in American English).

FERRIES

The highway comes to an abrupt end at the fiord. I guess that it's about 2 miles wide. There's no bridge to the far bank; the tides are too swift and the fiord too deep. Instead two ferries convey motorists across the waters, all day, all night and all year. There's no charge. Huge trucks comprise much of the traffic. We made it across without a problem although the GPS did rather dither over our B&B.

This was located near the top of the village. It proved to be a good choice. Our hosts were kind, the accommodation was 5-star, the views were superb and the breakfasts were amazing. The only downside was the need to indulge in small talk with other residents, much of the conversation necessarily in (Barbara's) French.

OUR BEDROOM

Tadoussec is a village of 800 people that swells to 4,000 in the height of summer. It offers holiday makers a good beach, inland waters for boating, whale-watching in the St Lawrence and endless hiking in the nearby national parks. Every second house advertises accommodation.

We took ourselves on a 3-hour whale watching cruise that began at the small quay a mile away at the bottom of the village. Although our twin-deck boat was capable of holding some 200 passengers, our actual number was closer to 30, which allowed us to move around the vessel and to get the best possible sighting of any whales.

The two species that inhabit the seaway in early summer are the lone Minke whales and the more sociable Belugas. We spotted a Minke first – they're black-backed – and followed it as best we could for 30 minutes. The animal would surface briefly to breathe and then vanish for several minutes – resurfacing hundreds of metres away. The whales feed for 20 hours a day, we learned, and sleep for 4, surfacing automatically to breathe while asleep.

BELUGAS

Later we came across a family of Belugas, white-backed and much smaller, that were happy to gambol around us. It was quite an emotional experience. Our guide was a young French woman with quaint English who really made the whole thing come alive. The business is competitive. Two other biggish boats and a couple of zodiacs shared the seas with us.

We learned a great deal more about the lives and activities of the whales during a subsequent visit to the whale research and information centre in Tadoussec. Needless and sad to say, hunting and pollution have endangered them.

On day 2 we took a drive up the fiord, stopping off at villages along the route and hiking out to viewing points. It's a glorious part of the world. What it doesn't do is cater for English speakers.

Hardly any information is provided to tourists in English.

We struggled to work out the complicated system at the unmanned entrance to a national park. We had to indicate on a card how long we would be staying and put the correct amount of money in the envelope provided. Without Barbara's French I wouldn't have had a clue.

On day 3 we made our farewells and headed back to Quebec City. We'd given ourselves lots of time, which was fortunate, because our hotel was located in the heart of the old city and not easy to find. Even harder was locating the offices of the car hire company to return the vehicle.

We knew they were located in the Delta Hotel. But finding the Delta Hotel proved the very devil of a job in the traffic – with nowhere to stop and consult the map, and the GPS recalculating every few seconds. Barbara eventually spotted the hotel from a distance, with its name high up on the building. We must have passed it a several times in our search.

With the car returned, we walked the streets of the old city – for the rest of that day and all of the next. By the end of our visit we could have taken you to the Delta Hotel blindfolded. Old Quebec is sharply divided between the lower city at the foot of the cliffs and the upper city with its extensive fortifications. Just a few steep roads link the two.

The old city is the place to live – established and elegant. Its modern residents are clearly more interested in commerce than defence. The streets are lined with art galleries, souvenir shops, fashion boutiques, boulangeries and markets.

Some of the buildings have giant scenes painted across an entire wall. We came across throngs of noisy kids from visiting school parties. At night they trailed behind guides in 19th century dress on ghost tours of the city.


Quebec's main buildings reminded us of Paris. One of these, the museum of civilisation was just a couple of blocks from our hotel. Its fine display on the evolution of man was more to my taste than that of my wife, who took herself for a walk while I peered at our ancestors.

Another target, the museum of fine arts, was several kilometres away. The building looks quite unlike an art gallery, unsurprising because it was once the city jail. Some of the tiny, grim cells are still open for inspection. Unlike the several galleries we'd visited in the US, Quebec's exposition concentrates on local and Innuit art, the latter mainly small sculptures from green stone and whale bone.

Friday morning we took a taxi to the airport – en route to Vancouver and a weekend with the Chris Joneses. In spite of Barbara's insistence that there should be a bus service to the airport, there wasn't. So taxi it was. There's a fixed fare, $32.50, which means that the driver gets $35.

At the airport, Air Canada informed us that instead of flying via Toronto as routed, we would be going via Montreal. There were no explanations. It made no difference to us but it clearly inconvenienced a French family who spent some time trying to sort things out at the check-in desk.