Quebec City - French looking and sounding

Quebec is just 3 hours away from Montreal. So we felt that since we were there, it would be a shame not to make the little extra driving and visit Quebec City. So there we were. A very tourist oriented town, the most popular landmark is Le Chateau, an imposing building on top of the hill. The city is very scenic because it is perched on a cliff overlooking the pletniful St Lawrence river.

One of the pictures shows a wall with the Fresque des Quebecois. It is hard to tell who is real life and who is a painting. We've been told that the people painted on the wall are local historical figures.

The architecture is very cool. Inside the city walls we found some old French-style buildings. We liked the steeply slanted roofs, especially the colorful ones.

We spent only half a day in Quebec City, but the drive was absolutely worth it.

Mercedes

Montreal, best by bike

Montreal is the most bike-friendly city I've ever seen. And the best part is that we had brought our bikes and Saturday was sunny with clear skyies refreshed by a breeze. Perfect for biking. We cycled the canal Lachine, then to Ile Ste-Helene, up to Mont-Royal, and lastly to the Botanical Garden next to the Olympic Park. The famous Jazz festival was on, so we enjoyed a few performances under the stars.

Lots of pictures attached.

Mercedes

Montreal - more pics

Pictures that didn't make it to the last posting...

Montreal - Beautifulique!

It took us 6 1/2 hours driving from NYC. We followed the Brazil-Netherlands game on the radio while driving, and checked in at our hotel right in time for the second half of the Uruguay-Ghana match. The start of our city tour was delayed by this match's overtime and penalty kicks. There was too much drama to leave the TV in our room.

Finally, the drama ended and we headed out for a walk to the Latin Quarter, the Old Port, downtown, Chinatown, Notre Dame, and finally we bumped on the International Jazz Festival. This thing is huge, so many people around. Really fun to just watch everybody while listening to live music. For example, there was a guy walking around with head encased in a cube of mirrors. (!?) Very cool.

We had dinner and now we are going to have a good rest, tomorrow is a long day: starting with Argentina-Germany, and then a full day of biking.

Montreal is very biker friendly, and is very beautiful. Weather is fully cooperating so far. So we can't ask for anything more.

Mercedes