Quebec, February 12-15, 2010

Posted: June 12th, 2010 | Filed under: Out Of Town

Driving up to Montréal and Québec City, we made a pit stop at the world-famous Betty Beavers Truck Stop & Diner in Lewis, New York:

We crossed the border in the waning winter light:

First stop was Montréal, where we stayed at the Hotel Delta. We did it up the first night when we got dinner at DNA (highly recommended) where we ate stuff like veal heart tartare:

The next morning we picked up hooch at the SAQ store near the hotel, then got breakfast to go at St-Viateur Bagel, one of the famed Montreal bagel spots:

Then we drove to Québec City to see the 2010 Québec Winter Festival. On the way up to the hotel, we passed by the facade of the Église Saint-Vincent-de-Paul, which is balanced precariously on the side of the road leading up to the Haute-Ville in Québec City:

We visited the winter festival back in 2008, but convinced some friends to visit it again, the highlights of which are the snow sculptures and festive night parade:

On the way back to Montréal we made another visit to Restaurant Madrid along Autoroute 20:

We had a smoked meat dinner back in Montréal at Schwartz’s, the other Montréal institution you’re always hearing about. And yes, both Schwartz’s and St-Viateur Bagel are as good as everyone says they are:

We drank at a couple of places on Rue Rachel before hitting up Resto La Banquise for that “fourth meal” of poutine. I doubled down and got poutine with smoked meat:

Some things transcend language:

We spent the last day around Montréal, doing some of the typical Big Mappy type stuff, including a morning walk around St. James United Church, Phillips Square and Wallenberg Square before trying to buy those cool Canada Olympic mittens at The Bay (this was the opening weekend of the Vancouver Olympics) (they were all out of adult-sized mittens):

Breakfast/shopping at Marché Jean-Talon in La Petite-Italie. That’s horse meat for sale:

We drove up to the Camillien Houde Lookout in Parc du Mont-Royal:

We took a furtive drive through Vieux Montréal, tried to take a tour of the Molson Brewery (too late) and drove by the Parc Olympique. The Stade Olympique is so bizarre and cool looking (but such a terrible place to watch baseball):

We bought food at the Christie Magasin d’Économies and Provigo before heading back over the Pont Jacques-Cartier to start our journey back home.