Quebec City snow and spas

There are no direct flights from Chicago to Quebec City this time of year, so we flew by way of Toronto. Here’s our maple-leafed air Canada wing over Lake Ontario as we approached for a landing. Love flying over the great lakes! And also thought we’d start off with a map – this is a historical map of areas in French and British North America where forts were held by one, the other, or both. Note Mobile in the very south and Quebec City in the north in this area of French historic influence.

We got to Quebec city after dark (sunset is at 4:30) and got settled on our Airbnb and then headed out to strom spa, where we had an evening reservation. The spa was so nice! We didn’t take any photos partly because it was all a lot to take in and understand, plus all the water, the bathrobes, etc. Like in Finland we went to a sauna and a cold plunge. This also included a restaurant where everyone was dining in their bathrobes! And has hot pools outdoors, even one with a Lazy river. The lights were low and everything was steamy. Pretty cool – and packed with people!

After that we had dinner at this lovely place, where the special is a steak in mustard sauce with fries/very thin cut chips.

On Sunday we walked through the old town and it was lovely to see the town in daylight! It’s very European feeling and French is definitely spoken everywhere, English broken out as needed! Merci to everyone who helps us out with that.

There’s a Celtic cross right across from our Airbnb that was a gift from the Irish to the québécois for help during the famine. Inscriptions are in French, English and Irish!

We walked along a boardwalk above the st Lawrence river, taking in the scenic views of the river. The large building below is the chateau Frontenac, a hotel, and right in front of it is a toboggan slide that (phew) is not open yet for winter!

Then we continued on and walked over on top of the walls of the citadel, the original fortified city. And we went to a museum that explored a lot of the history of the territorial and military history of the area. These two exhibits below were quite interesting, the first is a piece you walk through with a headset dnd listen to stories about the people depicted in the sculptures. The sculptures are all made of corrugated cardboard but are so well done they really give the characters a life-like feel. The second is about tartan traditions in Canada – news to me! The Yukon tartan was unusual compared to a lot of the others with deep reds and greens, and was inspired by nature.

Then off to another spa – the spa des Neiges. It really was snowing so the ‘snow spa’ seemed very appropriate to visit! It had similar features to strom but we got some photos this time. Really lovely location on the st Lawrence river, and we timed it to see the spa during day and night.

Back to Quebec and we had a really delicious fish dinner out near where we’re staying.

And a quick note – I’m working on getting images to open larger! Hope to have that fixed soon!