Happy Anniversary to me!
10:33 a.m.
On Saturday morning it was raining and we set out on the road to Quebec City, eschewing the scenic route through Thetford Mines because we feared we would see nothing and the extra time would be for nought. The sun came out about halfway through the trip as we drove in a north-easterly direction, the storm system passing to the south of us. By the time we arrived at our B&B, Chez Marie-Claire, the weather had become almost perfect. We were met by Patrick, a young university student whom it turned out is a classical guitarist studying composition (how uncanny is that?), who showed us our accommodations (a large room with two queen-size beds and an en suite bath) for that night and explained about breakfast. We settled our stuff in, and then headed out to Grande All�e to find some lunch and see the Picasso ceramics exhibit at the museum.
The Mus�e du Qu�bec is quite wonderful. The Picasso exhibit was arranged so that his own work was set alongside pieces that had inspired him, such as an Etruscan jug or a Peruvian water jar. I was especially taken with the trompe l�oeil plates. But my absolute favourites were the fish platters painted with bullfighting arenas, using the sides of the plate as the stands and the curve of the plate as the arena in perspective. Hubby bought me the catalogue from the exhibit which will bring back many pleasant memories.
The museum was also hosting an exhibit by Charles Cordier, a sculptor who made his bread and butter by casting the busts of dignitaries and rich patrons. His passion, however, was to make a �catalogue� of different races in bronze and other materials, and his pieces are so well executed that I would say they were technically flawless. He was an abolitionist, and you can tell from his works that he believed in the dignity of all humans.
The museum also has a permanent exhibit of paintings by the Quebec artist Jean-Paul Riopelle and a gallery of other contemporary Quebec artists. Absolutely incredible stuff. I was blown away. We also saw an exhibit by a couple of surrealist artists, Mimi Parent and Jean Benoit, which proved to be very surreal indeed as you got to the end of the gallery.
We came out of the museum at about 5 p.m. and my feet and legs were killing me from a) all the sitting in the car previously, b) the slow pace of walking through the galleries, and c) the extremely hard ceramic tiles underfoot. As we sat on a bench in the garden of the courtyard I looked at my running shoes and realized that I had on the left shoe from my good walking shoes and the right from my daughter�s squash shoes which she had grown out of. That would also account for the fatigue I was experiencing. Both shoes were white, and I was wearing long pants which covered the tops, but I still felt like an idiot, as though I had a piece of spinach stuck between my teeth or my skirt was tucked up in my pantihose in back. Luckily these were not my only footwear, but my only walking shoes.
We walked back to Grande All�e through the Parc des battailles, or the Plains of Abraham as they are also known, where Wolfe defeated Montcalm in 1759, both losing their lives, and France lost its foothold in North America. The view across the river is spectacular, and you can see ocean-going vessels chugging up the seaway to the port at Montreal, and then on through to the great lakes. We refreshed ourselves at a caf� before heading back to our room where we consummated our anniversary a day early, napped, then dressed in our finery and sought a fancy restaurant in which to dine properly. We settled on Guido on Rue Sainte-Anne. The whole experience took about three hours, comprising a very fine bottle of Ch�teau Lussac bordeaux, an amuse gueule of smoked salmon on saut�ed Chinese cabbage, soup for monsieur, a mesclun salad, apricot granit� as a palate cleanser, salmon for me and the vegetarian plate for him (I gave him a piece of my salmon which absolutely melted in the mouth and my beet mousse, since I do not like beets), and dessert was some chocolate extravaganza for hubby and tarte tatin (which is a fancy way of saying apple pie prepared in a cast iron skillet) for me, which I could not finish. I was stuffed but happy.
We then took a walk around the part of the old city in which we found ourselves, since the jazz club we wanted to visit was jampacked, visiting the lobby of the Hotel Frontenac, where we actually spent one night on our honeymoon 22 years ago, and then wandered back to our room where we slept until morning.
We breakfasted with two American families, a husband and wife from Washington, D.C. and a couple with their two daughters from Boston. They were very pleasant people, and Patrick prepared French toast and eggs to order (as long as they were either fried or scrambled). We had to change rooms, and the new one was on the third floor of this gorgeous old house and the bathroom was in the hallway, which was a definite disadvantage. However, the bed itself was more comfortable. We decided to just walk, the weather being superb, and found ourselves at the March� du vieux port where we bought a half-dozen apples to munch on, some blueberries, and a bottle of blackcurrent porto. We walked to the old port itself along the waterfront, and found a bench facing the water where we just soaked up the sunshine and reveled in the luxury of being �away from it all� for several days, including telephones and internet, and not having a care in the world.
Unfortunately nature has a way of calling you back to reality, and we walked over to Place Royal where there is a tourist bureau with very clean washrooms. We watched three musicians (a fiddler, a bass clarinettist and a concertina player) entertain the passing throngs with traditional fare for a while, leaving a contribution in their can before continuing through the narrow, cobblestone streets in search of some lunch, which we found at St. Patrick�s Irish Pub. We also met a couple from Montreal who were seated next to us who had come to Quebec for the weekend, but were unfortunately leaving that evening. They would have been fun to hang out with.
Back at our room, we partook in some more anniversary conjugations, and napped again before going in search of supper, which we found at Casa Calzone on Grande All�e, and which was excellent. Afterwards we checked out different night spots, but being Sunday not much was going on. So we ended back at the jazz pub at the Clarendon Hotel where we hadn�t been able to get in the night before, and listened to a fabulous guitarist and saxophone player do standards. The bar was not crowded at all and, except for the francophones behind us who talked non-stop until they finally left, the patrons seemed to have come for the jazz and were a most appreciative audience. We ordered fancy blended drinks and nursed them until it was time to leave. It was a great way to spend an anniversary.
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