We tried
a different place for breakfast this morning. I had picked one off
the sheet of recommended places to go to that the hotel left in each
room but despite walking along the street I could not see it. Stef
was getting humpy because he was hungry and I was fed up with him
getting humpy because he had no more idea than I did of where this
place was! It turned out well in the end through because we went to
a nice cafe Du Buade and had a very tasty breakfast
which set us up well for the day.
Unlike yesterday it was not raining so we decided to walk along the
boardwalk through the old part of town and into the Plains of
Abraham. This is the site of a decisive battle where the British
took a whole twenty two minutes to defeat the French and take
control of Quebec. The walkway, known as the Terrasse Dufferin,
which becomes the Promenade des Gouverneurs,
provides great views down into the valley and of the old quarter.
There is a ferry that runs from here across to Levis on the other
side of the St Lawrence. It was having a bit of a tough time
because wind had replaced rain and it was battling slightly with the
tides.
The walkway takes you close to the Citadel. In town the roads gently
wind uphill but not so on the boardwalk. As you reach the end a
sign warns you that there are 310 steps to climb up to get to the
top. Predictably we counted as we went and neither of us made it 310
so we were slightly intrigued to know what has happened to the
missing steps. Stef stopped for a coffee at the top and we then
carried on walking through Battlefields Park towards the art
gallery.
The park was superb. It was a real oasis of calm so close to the
city. We pondered over which other cities we have been to that have
so much green space right in the centre. London is an obvious one
and is renowned for its parks, there is the Tuileries in Paris, the
Vondelpark in Amsterdam but apart from that we could only think of
small parks or cities where the parks are well and truly outside the
centre. Each province has its own tree which is its provincial tree,
many of which were different varieties of fir tree. Each tree was
twinned with a tree from another country. This collection of trees
was the start of a small nature trail that led you through the park.
Our route to us to the Muséee National des beaux-arts de Québec.
This is housed partly in
an old building which has now been connected up to the building next
door, the former jail house of Quebec. There is a guided audio tour
that you can follow through the gallery. It started with permanent
exhibitions about Quebecois art dating back through the French
period (1608 - 1763), the British holding (1763 - 1867), the the
early years of Confederation (1867 - 1900) right through to more
modern art up to the middle of the 1900's.
For me one of the most interesting pieces was in a temporary exhibit
called "Tell Me" but annoyingly, I cannot remember the artist. It was a
large room with seven large screens lined up next to each other each
showing a different, but connected film. It was a real case of
sensory overload, both visual and audio, and I would be intrigued to
watch it more times to fill in the blanks. It starts on the middle
screen with a car driving through a tunnel. They must have had
cameras down the outside of the car as on the screens either side of
the centre you then got the peripheral vision you would normally
see if you were actually driving through a tunnel yourself.
Each screen then split off to follow its own story line. One was a
woman repairing stone aquefers in a field and making patterns
with the stones that were then covered by water, another followed a
man walking along a road smoking a cigarette. Another screen
showed a young woman playing an unusual musical instrument, yet
another had a young man intoning to himself while almost dancing
around a building, then a field, lit up with a myriad of candles.
The other screens were mainly just aerial views across the hills and
valley.
The information panel at the start of the exhibit almost spoiled
the show as it said that the films on each screen converge at the
end. Part way through you could see that the aerial shots were over
the valley where the young an was dancing and that the woman playing
the instrument was not far way from him. But that was not how they
converged. The films each gradually moved round to give you a
different perspective of a lorry coming round a bend in the road,
crashing and sliding on its side towards a camper van. Petrol leaked
out from the van and then there was an explosion inside the camper
van. Each screen gave a different perspective on these events before
diverting off again into their own space which then brought the
whole show to an end.
Not only was there all this visual information to take in but there
was a soundtrack for each film too. The central track was in English
and I had initially expected some sort of running commentary but
within seconds a French track started and then more were layered on
top. Normally I am pretty good at "tuning in" and being able to
follow one sound track amongst many but with the visual overload
taking its toll too I could not distinguish any of the individual
sound tracks.
I have never seen a work of art like this before but it intrigued
and fascinated me. I am writing this diary a few days down the line
and I think my mind is still mulling it over subconsciously and
trying to fit the pieces together. If you ever get the chance to go
and see it, add it onto your "must do" list. It was twenty minutes
long but I have spent much longer than that thinking about it and
trying ti relieve and piece together all the constituent parts.
Stunning!
Leaving that display I said to Stef that my brain was all full up
and could not cope with any more art for the time being. We stopped
for lunch at the gallery before heading back into town. They were
preparing for what looked like a big function, setting up tables
with glasses and getting tables for people to sit and eat set up in
the main entrance lobby. A stage was all set up with the band's bits
and pieces ready to go. We asked what was happening and they
confirmed they had a wedding reception there that night. Its a great
setting as the building is light and airy and the terrace looks out
over the park.
Jeanne d'Arc's sword seems
to flash
lightning - it's just the
weak autumn sun
We ambled back towards town going a different route through the
parks. This one took us through a small, formal garden called the
Joan of Arc garden. Back in the 1930's a couple donated a
commemorative statue of Joan of Arc to Quebec and the city built the
gardens around it. Their initial grand plans were shelved due to
WWII but the resulting gardens look like they will be stunning when
full of summer blooms.
Around the garden were information panels talking about some of the
seedier background of Quebec. Lost galleons and missing treasure,
murders, the deaths and graves of important people long gone by,
ghosts and ghouls. The whole garden had also been decorated with
lots of pumpkins. It is one of the stops on the "Ghosts and Ghouls"
walking tour of the city and we think that these were special
decorations in the run up to Halloween rather than permanent
exhibits throughout the year. It was cleverly done and even on a
dark, cloudy, off season afternoon there were quite a few people
walking around and having a look.
Running along this side of the park was what looked like one of the
affluent areas of the city. There were large houses with great views
of the park. They did not look as if they had been sub-divided down
into flats but no doubt they have been. Back in the old quarter we
headed for another old house in town, the Fairmont Hotel Frontenac,
another of the railway hotels they have built across Canada.
Allegedly this is one of the most photographed hotels in the world.
It looks as if it has come straight out of a Cinderella style fairy
tale.
We booked in for the guided tour of the hotel and went for a drink
in the bar while we waited along the way passing a bride and groom having their
photos taken, one of two weddings they had in the
hotel today. The bar was a relaxing old place with a covered terrace
with views looking out across the St Lawrence. I could picture well
to do family's here at the start of the century with the men
discussing "important" matters while smoking their finest cigars.
The tour was not quite what we had hoped for. The guide was, as
ever, dressed in costume from the late 1800's but due to the
weddings we could not get to see the main ballroom and other big
function rooms. She told us about the history of the hotel which has
been built in seven stages with the
most recent part being completed in I think the 1990's. Not surprisingly,
the hotel has had its share of major fires, most likely due to the
being wood fires which used to be in each of the guest rooms. This
is no more and the chimneys have now been opened up and have windows
in them.
The roof of some of the function rooms has been turned decoratively
into a garden but not one just for the sake of it. It is the hotel's
herb garden and in summer this provides them with all the herbs they
need for the hotel's kitchens. We went to see one of the bedrooms
but the guide could not find the room. She took us down to one of
the function rooms for a few minutes while she went to find out
where the bedroom was. On the way we got good views of the different
turrets and rooftops of the hotel and it made me think of
Hogwarts School from Harry Potter. I was waiting for the staircases
and corridors to start moving around!
We waited in a round room which again had good views of the St
Lawrence. It was here that heads of state from the UK, USA, Canada
and other allies met in WWII to draw up the plans for the D Day
landing. Apparently, as they all left they also left the plans
behind them, but fortunately a waiter found them and handed them
over to someone from the FBI. When we did get into a room we were
both a bit surprised at how anonymous it was. During the tour the
guide had said a couple of times that all six hundred and eighty
rooms in the hotel were different in terms of their size, layout and
decor. The result that we saw was just the same as a room in any
standard sort of business hotel, only here it would have cost a lot
more.
As we went back down in the lift the guide pointed out their mail
system. Next to the lifts is a glass chute that the residents can
use to post their mail. In most cases, their letters drop down to
the bottom into a main post box and are collected and taken away.
They do have cases where sometimes the letters get stuck and
recently one written thirty years ago finally made it down to the
bottom.
After the hotel we went to a pub in town for a quick drink. It
claims to be an English pub but is unlike any English pub I've been
to in a long time. It is really more of a restaurant because most
people come here mainly to eat with drinking being a secondary
activity. It was already packed so we took a couple of stools at the
bar and chatted off and on with the bar man. He and Stef got on well
as Stef could not resist the temptation to try a few different beers
and they chatted over various different options. We decided in the
end to eat here rather than looking for someone else and ended up
back in our hotel quite early.
