continental confusion (plus links to pics)

i am suffering from a serious bout of continental confusion. if someone had blindfolded me and dropped me in Quebec City and then asked me where i thought i was, i would have said I was in a beautiful, historic small city anywhere in europe....certainly not north america! I adore europe...i call it home...and many of our travel experiences have been in small, quaint cities or towns just like this one. Maybe that is why, after only one afternoon, quebec has become my favorite place that we have visited so far on this trip...it feels like home.

We spent our afternoon wondering around the old town, dodging hail storms by ducking into quaint boutiques and relaxing in various cafes for a glass of wine here and a cappuccino there. I did like Montreal but somehow Quebec has even more character, more charm, more history...it is a fortification, with castles and citadels and ancient walls. The french influence on this place is everywhere - from the language of course, to the way the locals dress with European flair...even down to the Gaelic tendency towards hand gestures....

As a tourist you can do all sorts of cruises down the st lawrence river for $30 or so....but as backpackers we took our taxi driver come tour guide's advice and caught the local ferry after dark. for a fiver each we had the most amazing views of the sparkling lights of the city from the water. unforgettable.

j'adore Quebec!!

PS - due to the loud and insistent demands of our adoring, blog-reading public (pls keep leaving those comments...we want to know who's reading this thing!) we have finally got our act together with some photos. it's a hassle to upload them to this blog thingy-me-ging so at the moment we're uploading to facebook and providing a link here for those of you who are still living in 2003 and therefore aren't on f/book...so here are the first bunch and we promise to be a bit better on the photo front.


New York Photos


Toronto Photos

xx