Halloween in Quebec

Last fall, I spent a beautiful week in the old walled city of Quebec...walking on the wall and through the Plains of Abraham, enjoying the autumn foliage and the smell of woodsmoke in the air. One of the things I love best about this charming city is its celebratory spirit, no matter what the season. A haunted garden and some larger-than-life ghosts were just a few of the October decorations I spotted on my walks.

Poutine Forever- Freedom Fries Never!

by Ricky Wilcox
Ah, Quebec! (or the city of many stairs, as we grew to call it). This is a beautiful place filled with 400 year old winding cobblestone streets with tons of cafes, flower boxes overflowing, perched on a bluff above the St. Lawrence Seaway, all anchored by the beautiful and castle like Hotel Frontenac. And French fries with gravy and cheese curds! Thank god the Brits and Americans never succeeded in their attempts to quell the French spirit here, it lives on to make this place so unique…and fun! Au revoir...

Now These Guys Know How To Put On A Show…

by Ricky Wilcox
The Quebec City Summer Festival knows how to put on a show. Stages everywhere, street performers, beer and wine, a huge lineup of stars and lesser known talent, and beer and wine...priorities people! We left town too early to catch Sting or, even better in my tarnished rock and roll book, KISS!-damn- but we did see a couple of great shows, some by accident due to my inability to read a weekly calendar in French ("wrong turns to adventure!'” as my friend Ginger would say). Hoping to see The Proclaimers, we hit the main stage only to be greeted by the bass throbbing boom boom of Jamaican dance hall music. Have The Proclaimers changed their direction? Too much delicious and powerful Canadian beer? Alas it was Sean Paul, apparently hugely popular (reinforcement of how out of touch I am) but very entertaining, and by far the biggest crowd we saw all week- it was slammin'. The production was stellar- beautiful sound and lights and ambiance. I went to a very helpful info booth (for ditzy Yanks) and was told the show I sought was the following night...so we made it back and finally saw The Proclaimers who sounded great but were oddly a bit mechanical...brothers Charlie and Craig stood about 30 feet apart and never really interacted at all (ah- family), but the huge video monitors flanking the stage did a nice blend of the two, making it appear they were standing side by side in perfect rock star harmony! It was still a happy moment for me. Then came the headliners, The Brian Setzer Orchestra, who pretty much started off by kicking ass and kept right on taking names. Of course, we left early to make sure we got to see the tight rope crossing at 11:30 pm, only to be rained out...again! Unfortunately, a lot of rain didn't help my chances at taking photos, my camera stayed bundled up in the ol' backpack a lot of the time.

Too Much Fun

I wrote about my friend Ricky's vacation to Quebec City, but now I'm going to let him tell you in his own words about his first time in one of my favorite places. For years, we've worked together in the music business, the PR business, and now in the travel business and as you'll see, his photographs are wonderful and his take on the Summer Music Festival (since he's a professional musician) picks up on things I might never have noticed.

Too Much Fun…by Ricky Wilcox
Our recent decision to visit Quebec City for it's European flair resulted in a harmonic convergence of the best possible kind...so much stuff was going on at the same time that it was overwhelming- but in a good way! The week we went was part of the Quebec City Summer Festival...a massive, eclectic music festival on a bunch of stages around town. Also, Cirque du Soleil was doing FREE street shows under a highway overpass (once we found it), an amazing show with full production. There was a major audio visual presentation called The Image Mill; uber-creative projections on a row of the port's mill towers, also FREE, and a planned night time tight rope crossing: The Legendary Crossing by Ramon Kelvink Jr...directly in front of our hotel! (uh-also FREE...just look up) Unfortunately, rainy weather caused several cancellations of the crossing. We were there by traveler’s luck for all the cancellations, then they decided to just do it during the day (before it rained)- of course- the only day we decided to rent a car and get out of town. Missing the walk was a big disappointment, but the day trip to Canyon Sainte Anne and Chute Montmorency was awesome; kick ass waterfalls with crazy/ scary pedestrian bridges. Well worth 'getting out of Dodge' for...

A Taste of Montreal at the Jean Talon Market

Montreal has several farmer's markets, but one of the largest is Jean Talon where there are even stalls open 24 hours a day to accommodate shift workers and students. While the "farm to table" movement in the U.S. is just catching on, it's always been a way of life here and all of the food at the market is grown within 50 km of the city. Even better, all of the stallholders put out samples of their wares so you can try before you buy. One of the most popular stalls is the "corn lady"...not only does she sell her fresh-from-the-stalk ears every day, but she cooks up ears of corn that you can purchase and has tubs of butter and salt shakers on hand. It was truly the best ear of sweet corn I have ever had...summertime on a cob...so tender and wonderfully messy with all the dripping butter. I could have eaten a dozen of those, and in fact, the vendor makes over 15 dozen ears a day for local corn lovers.

Bagel Smackdown

New York prides itself on having the best bagels on the planet, but ask any Montreal resident and they'll tell you that Fairmount Bagels are the world's best circle of dough. Since 1919, this local bagel boulangerie has used the same wood-fired ovens to produce 18 varieties of the breakfast favorite. I had one straight from the oven...crusted in sesame seeds and so hot I had to break it open and let it cool before taking a bite. The dough is much lighter (more of a bread consistency than its NYC cousin) and is sweetened with honey. I scarfed the whole thing down in a nanosecond with no additional condiments, and if I lived in Montreal, I would be a regular customer. My mouth is watering as we speak, just thinking of the possibilities of the other 17 varieties I didn't get to taste. www.fairmountbagel.com

I Can See It But I Can't Get There

The biggest challenge about staying at the Hyatt is figuring out how to get inside. It sits on the corner of Sainte-Catherine , the longest shopping street in the city, and is directly across from the Museum of Contemporary Art and the main festival plaza. During the jazz festival a couple of years ago, we sat out on the hotel balcony and had a birds-eye view of the main stage.

However, because of its location in the heart of the city and its situation on the side of a hill, you enter through the garage and take an elevator up to the lobby level. If you choose the wrong door, you'll end up either in a neighboring restaurant or the underground shopping mall that runs underneath most of Montreal. In fact, you can take an elevator from the Hyatt lobby level to the shopping mall and can sit on the terrace and look through the large plate glass window at the fountain that soars to the roof and the shoppers scurrying around on the levels below you. But once you get the hang of which elevator to take, this is the premier location for festival-goers. Since most of the performers and crew stay here, it's like having a backstage pass. www.montreal.hyatt.com