Quebec is a Canadian province, where French is the dominant language. Quebec tried to be separated from Canada a couple times .... that's the extent I knew about Quebec. Recently I visited Quebec city for a week on a business trip, and gained some first hand, but mostly superficial experience of Quebec city.
River St, Lawrence runs through Quebec city, which is a medium size city in US standard. Streets are typically narrow (two lanes), main throughput is 4 lanes with one lane in each direction reserved for buses and taxis, and there are few tall buildings. The streets in downtown area (including the old town) are safe to walk, and I walked to convention center, restaurants and tourist attractions if it was not raining or too late in nights. I encountered only Caucasians in the streets. In fact Quebec is 97% white according to census. Interestingly, the Uber drivers I met were all people of color, mostly Arabian descents or African descent. My assumption is that those are refugees Canada took in in recent years.
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| old town - Vieux-Québec |
There are many small parks in the city, most of them have some kind of art work, sculptures, monuments. There are many more churches - there are two churches near the hotel Pur where I stayed. There are two churches named Notre-Dame. The biggest church in the province, I believe, is The Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, about 20 miles northeast to downtown.
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| Parc Gilles-Lamontagne |
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| Latin America Park |
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| Jean-Paul-L'Allier Garden |
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| Quebec Flag |
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| Church of St Roch |
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| The Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré |
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| Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica |
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| Notre-Dame des Victories |
Unlike
my first visit to Paris, staff at hotel, convention center, waiters and waitresses in restaurants in Quebec city spoke English with us freely and without reservation. I learned a few courtesy french words before leaving as well, 'bonjour', 'merci'. The concierge at Pur was very nice, he recommended several restaurants to us, and we went to two of them, Abacore, a fish restaurant for the first dinner, and Le Clocher Penche, a local french restaurant, where reservation is required for our last dinner at Quebec. My colleague and I had my first oyster there due to ignorance, but it tasted delicious and I did not have negative reaction to it. The waitress spoke fluent English with no french accent and was nice both in personality and in serving us. We had great last dinner - delicious food, engaging conversation, which lasted more than 2 hours! We walked back to hotel afterwards.
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| abaCore - a fish restaurant |
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| tempura cod |
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| Cornish chicken |
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| pig blood pudding |
The most impressive thing about Quebec city is the preservation of old town Quebec - Vieux-Québec, which dated back to 1608, which claims the only fortified
city walls remaining in the Americas north of
Mexico. This area was declared a
World Heritage Site by
UNESCO in 1985 as the "Historic District of Old Québec".
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