15.7.2012 – 15.7.2012  30 °C

A nice leisurely start today with us spending the day driving thru French Quebec to the home of the French Canadian’s, Quebec City. We took the slow road (surprise, surprise) from Montreal alongside the banks of the St Lawrence Sea Way to Quebec City.

Our drive today took us through more and more farmlands and plenty of small villages. The banks of the St Lawrence are dotted with old wind and water mills which I think were used for grinding grain. We stopped at one historical windmill this morning and all I could work out was it was some sort of grain mill (all the signs are in French, and mine isn’t that crash hot.. although I do read it much better than I speak it)

We found a nice place to stop for morning tea (on the banks of some nameless river) and watched the locals put in their boats and generally just soaked up the cooler weather (a little anyhow!). Our lunch stop for today was at one of the other historic water mills, this one, complete with eatery. We avoided testing out our French and instead used their picnic tables and had some sandwiches. After a walk around their grounds we jumped back in the car and continued our drive into Quebec City.

We arrived into Quebec City mid afternoon and immediately headed for the tourist info to get the goss on how to get around the old city. It turns out that it is cheaper for the three of us to drive and park than catch public transport, so with this plan we jumped back in our car and headed into the city. We drove into the city by way of the St Lawrence sea way and saw the lower part of the old city. It appears to be filled with beautiful cutesy shops, cobblestoned streets, and gorgeous painted shutters.. Really cute! The thing that really stuck in my mind though, is why Quebec City would have been such an important trade city. The actual city is up on the bluff above the lower city, the bluff is probably a good 20 stories high so it would be pretty hard for any attacking army to get to the town easily.

After driving another 5 mins out of town we arrived at our accommodation for the next couple of days. After checking in, we left M in the room (with a headache) and D and I headed back into town to grab a bite to eat and check out the old town. We drove into the walls of the old town, managed to find a park on the street and then started traipsing. Our amble (up to the Chateau) took us past some beautiful old pension style hotels (think cutesy little semi detached three story, European style hotels.. all brightly painted and very inviting!). D was silly enough to go inside and enquire about price.. silly, because he discovered that it was cheaper for us to stay in the old town than out of town! Isn’t that always the way???

Anyway, the walk up to the chateau was really pleasant. Not only are the buildings just gorgeous, the streets are paved with cobblestones and every couple of minutes a horse and buggy ambles past full of tourists! Too cute!! After snapping some photos of the chateau (or should I say Quebec City’s Castle) we continued down into the old town looking for some Poutine.

Poutine is the food to eat here in Quebec and after having it I have to agree! We went to this fast food joint (Ashton’s) where we were assured we would be tasting the best Poutine of anywhere in Quebec City. Our first impression was pretty ordinary.. the shop was packed and the customer in front of us changed his order 10 times. Normally, a customer changing his order isn’t an issue, but it is an issue when the customer doesn’t speak French and speaks broken English! If I was the shop attendant I would have just refused to serve this guy.. the customer wasn’t polite and was getting angry at the poor kid who was having trouble understanding him.. Hell, even I was having trouble and English isn’t my second language!!

Eventually, we received our heavenly delight of Poutine.. First impression of Poutine is not a good one.. Poutine is fries, covered in gravy and curds. It looks pretty awful, but tastes amazing!! The thing that struck me is that the curds “squeak” when you eat them!!! I had read (somewhere in my dim past) that curds “squeaked” when you eat them, but having never had this strange solidified version of milk, I wasn’t too sure! I’m guessing, that most people reading this will be similar to me and have never tried curds, if this is the case, this is sort of what they look, feel and taste like in your mouth… Curds, most reminds me of tofu. It has the similar whitey colour, moist-ish appearance and is sort of lumpy looking.. actually looks wise it is somewhere between lumpish sour cream and tofu. Texture wise in your mouth it is most like tofu, but when you chew it you can hear it “squeaking” between your teeth.. Really amazing! Flavour wise, it is cheese-ish flavoured but a very light flavoured cheese.. definitely not a cheddar flavour.. Flavour is actually the hardest to describe, all I can say is light cheese flavoured.

The whole package of Poutine is just tops. It is French Fries (that still have their skins on them) that are gravified (but the gravy isn’t like ours… it must be some sort of special recipe because although it looks and smells like gravy it has a much sweeter, spicier flavour) with these squeaky curds on top… All I can say, is that if you ever go to Quebec you have to try Poutine!

After dinner we ambled our way back up to our car and headed home for a well deserved sleep… I may just have to find myself some more Poutine tomorrow…

Song of the Day– Don McLean, Castles in the Air