"Vivre Québec!" a Quebec Travel Page by tiabunna

Hanging on a school classroom wall in Australia, long ago, was a copy of a painting showing the valiant James Wolfe and his men climbing the cliffs of Québec to liberate Canada from the French. Well, that was how it was presented in those long-gone days, when Australia still officially saw itself as “British” and whatever The British Empire did, or had done, was always presented uncritically as a ‘good thing’!

Times change! This particular schoolboy looking at that picture never expected, in his wildest dreams, that one day he would be fortunate enough to visit the very place – and any nonsense about ‘Britishness’ in Australia has long gone. History now is viewed with a somewhat more critical eye!

But back to our visit. We were delighted to find that the ‘Old Québec’ part of the city, at least, still retains quite a bit of the look and feel of a French provincial city. It is, after all, the Capital of the French-speaking Province of Quebec.

The arrival of the Canadian Pacific Railway and the construction of the enormous Frontenac Hotel in the late 1890s (heading photo) probably led to as much change in Québec as the British invasion, by promoting the invasion of tourists. That continues and, not surprisingly, Québec has taken advantage of it so that now the whole of the old city probably qualifies as a ‘tourist trap’ – though in the nicest possible way! We had a marvellous visit and could happily have lingered longer.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I am embarrassed to find that it is now almost a year since our visit - and here we are in Québec’s 400th anniversary year! It’s high time that I began presenting this page so that I have something in place for the anniversary on 3 July – though I shall have to ask you to return later as, because of other commitments, this page will have to be presented in stages.