My Trans-Canada Rail Journey – Part 5

Day Two in Quebec is for serious sightseeing and there is a great deal to see. Five million tourists visit this city every year, winter and summer, and with good reason. It is not to be missed.

Quebec is celebrating its 400th anniversary this year. Founded and settled by the French in 1608, the city was captured by the British a century-and-a-half later in 1759 and remained British until Canada was formed in 1867.

Quebec was and is the only fortified city in North America. That came to be because the Brits doubted the loyalty of the city’s French citizens and built a massive stone Citadel into which they could retreat if worse ever came to worst. It sits on high ground overlooking the St. Lawrence river some 350 feet below. The ritualistic changing of the guard takes place at the Citadel every morning at 10 o’clock. It is, as the locals wryly point out with only slight exaggeration, a British tradition presented by French Canadians to American tourists.

Sloping away from the Citadel is a large open area known as the Plains of Abraham, so named because one Abraham Martin once grazed his cattle on these grounds. It was here that the British, led by General James Wolfe, defeated the French under the Marquis de Montcalm. Both Wolfe and Montcalm were fatally wounded during the battle which took place over two days in September of 1759.

The Brits may have won that day but, make no mistake, Quebec remains French … thoroughly, proudly, defiantly French. In fact, there are two-thirds of a million people here and 95% of them speak French.

It’s my last night in Quebec and, after a second exquisite meal at Le Saint-Amour, I spend another couple of hours wandering through the old town. Most of the buildings are stone, and many here in the Old City date well back to the 1700s. Doors and trim are painted in an endless variety of bright colors and the countless layers of paint have rounded and softened corners and edges.

A horse-drawn carriage comes down the street, driven by a young man in colonial garb topped off with a three-cornered hat. His shoes, however, are decorated with the Nike swoosh.