We spent a couple of days in Torronto, Visited the Science Centre where the “Body Worlds 2” Exhibit was on… that was pretty cool, Gaelle gave us a lovely tour through the city showing us all the great Achitecture (she achitectual Engineere?) and giving us a good overview of the lay of the land.
on Tues Morning Gaelle picked up the rental Chevy People mover and we headed off early for Montreal in the province of Quebec…into French speaking country.
Montreal was a beautiful City, full of lovely old buildings and covererd in snow! great shopping, Friendly people and SNOW!!! yay!!
We stayed in a hotel for the night and spent the next day walking up around the hills in Montreal giving us a great view of the city and a chance to get out into a bit of nature, it was so amazing to wander through a forest of trees all covrered in snow with all the little Birds (Chickadees) and Squirrels running around.
That night we headed off to Quebec City, prob one of the oldest citys in North America, our B&B where we stayed for 3 nights was located in the heart of the old part of the city, inside the huge Stone wall “Fortifications” that protected the city from the english invaders! our B&B along with all the other buildings in the area were all between 200 to 300+ years old and so beautiful! along with the oldest Chatau style hotel in North America.
So much history so little time, we spent the whole day on thursday Walking through the city and down past the fortification walls to the partialy Frozen river below, all the walls of the city were lined in huge cannons to stop any English Pigs from invading 😉 Gealle was a great tour guide, not only her vast knowledge of french architecture and history but also her ability to speak fluent French and talk to locals to try and fill any gaps, find directions.. order drinks .. and so on (altho just about every person we met spoke very good english, and seemes only too pleased to speak whatever we prefered, Quebec City is a huge tourist destination and so the french there are very friendly and acomodating)
Thursday night we Ran around acting like children playing in the snow,we hired some Ice skates and had a play on an outside rink then we had a tabogan race, Kiwis Vs Torrono …. Kiwis won !! So much fun, we then made up a drinking game using Texas Holdem Poker and had a couple of quiet drinks befor heading to bed.
On friday Morning we loaded up the Car and headed up to “Le Massif” for a day of skiing, They had a 300+cm Base and it snowed over a foot in the time we were there, so much powder! and the most amazing views of the River (looked more like a lake you couln’t see the other side) The bottom of the field is right down by the water, and most of the runs were between 1.5- 2km long!! they seemed to go on for ever! It was a great preview of what Skiing in Canada is like, I can’t wait for whistler !!
We got back into Quebec city that night and spent our last night in French Canada (We had Cheese Fondue for dinner at a French Resturaunt and I had snails for the first time since I was about 3 years old 😉 Sat morning we Made our way Back to Ontario stopping off for lunch at Gaelles Mums place, they have a great spot out in the middle of no where, the forest backing their house was the home of Coyotes, Wolves, foxes, Mooses, Deer, Raccons etc etc.
I was hopeing to see some but they were all hiding from me 🙁
We arrived in Peterbourough at around 9pm at Mias Grandparents house, we spent the next few days there but thats another story 😉