Random interiors

And I do mean random -- going through pictures and finding some I'd never processed, much less posted.

On the left, a curve of ramp and staircase and the deep blue sky of a winter's afternoon, at the Musée national des beaux-arts in Quebec. On the right, a nondescript hallway in an office building in Chelsea. I just liked those strange winged light fixtures.

Urban poetry

One of those scenes that could be almost any city, anywhere: a restaurant at the end of a not very promising alley.

Given that this particular alley was in Quebec City, I'm pretty confident that the restaurant is far better than its scruffy entryway would suggest.

I have a sudden craving for a maple butter crepe.....

Saturday reflections

There's an array of small reflections in these windows in Quebec, but I especially love the patterns of dappled light reflected from the windows across the street.

Random things I saw in Quebec

One of the welcome fires around the city; the Dufferin Terrace outside the Château Frontenac was almost as icy as the river below; the train station (where I actually stayed in a loft my first two nights in the city); the spires and bare trees of winter in Quebec.

Urban poetry

Just a few pictures left from Quebec, but here's something different: between the buildings on the rue de Petit-Champlain and the cliffs of the Upper Town lies this little street, with stairs and walkways climbing the cliffs on one side and the backs of the buildings on the other. 

The setting

The lobby and the ballroom at the Château.

I was surprised by how many families with young children came to the dinner. I'm assuming they had a special children's menu; even the most sophisticated toddlers are not likely to enjoy foie gras.

Fête de Noël

Our tour ended with Christmas dinner at the Château Frontenac.

It was four courses, not including an amuse bouche and dessert, and I was pretty much done halfway through the second course. I barely tasted the tenderloin, and ate exactly one bite of dessert. But I very much enjoyed the spectacle of it all -- getting dressed up and heading to the Château, mingling with the crowds in the lobby, then heading up the stairs to the ballroom for dinner.

I did love that they translated mousseline de courge as “squash muslin.” Muslin -- the fabric -- is mousseline in French, but an edible mousseline would never be called a muslin in English.

O Holy Night

I took these pictures on my way to Mass Christmas Eve.

Trompe l'oeil

These murals on buildings in the Lower Town depict historic figures and writers and artists.

Benedict Arnold was here

I had long forgotten -- if I ever knew -- that an invasion of Quebec was part of the Continental army strategy during the Revolutionary War.

The assault on Quebec City on December 31, 1775 was led by Richard Montgomery and Benedict Arnold, and was a failure. Montgomery was killed and Arnold's leg was shattered, but for some reason the fact that he reached Quebec at all was enough to earn him a promotion to general.

These plaques near the Place Royale commemorate the Canadian victory.

Place Royale

Also in the Lower Town, this square was the original heart of the city.  Samuel de Champlain built his Abitation, a combination fort-trading post-storehouse-residence, here after his arrival in 1608. Most of the buildings are restorations, but the church Notre-Dame-des-Victoires dates from 1688. 

Christmas in le Petit-Champlain

It is basically Whoville, minus the Grinch -- there were carolers, trees and lights and Christmas decorations, and children posing for pictures on Père Noël's lap.

Le Petit-Champlain

A last view, taken as the ferry pulled in. 

The neighborhood below the cliffs is called le Petit-Champlain, and it's the oldest part of the city, and quite possibly the most charming. 

You can get there via funicular, from the terrace outside the Château Frontenac, or you can use the stairs (called the Breakneck Stairs for good reason -- they're very steep. I took them once, but used the funicular to go back up.)

City from the ferry

Here's the city seen from the ferry, floating on its magic carpet of ice.

I celebrated the New Year by catching a cold, so I've been lazy about processing and posting pictures. I caught the Emma Thompson Sense and Sensibility on TV earlier in the week, and enjoyed it very much, though Hugh Grant made a most unsatisfactory Edward Ferrars -- he sidled into every scene like a child playing dress up in Mom's high heels -- and I much preferred Alan Rickman's Colonel Brandon as a potential husband for the Dashwood sisters.

So I nursed my cold by drinking tea and re-reading the book, which was not such a bad way to start the year.

And ice

I was not surprised to learn that the St. Lawrence River used to freeze over every winter. Icebreakers keep it open now, because it's a critical shipping lane between the Atlantic and the Great Lakes, but there's still an abundance of ice. We had a free afternoon on Christmas Eve, and I took the ferry across the river and back to see it close up. It reminded me of Antarctica.

More snowy views

These pictures -- a school courtyard in the old city, the St. Lawrence, and a terrace outside the Musée national des beaux-arts -- aren't black and white, but they might as well be.

Snowy streets

If you're going to be spending Christmas inside a real-life Christmas card, snow is a must. 

Sunrise

This is almost certainly my last sunrise for 2019: Christmas Eve in Quebec City.

Champlain

“It was of a man looking out over the city he'd founded four hundred years earlier.

Samuel de Champlain.

Bare-headed, bold, stepping forward as though wanting to join them, to be a part of this city that existed only because he had. And at the base of the statue another, smaller, image. An angel, sounding a trumpet to the glory of the founder. And even Gamache, who was no great fan of nationalism, felt wonder, awe, at the unshakable vision and courage of this man to do what many had tried and failed.”

-- Louise Penny, Bury Your Dead

Several of us on the trip were reading, or re-reading, this book because it's set in Quebec City. I love doing that -- reading a Rebus book in Edinburgh, or a Brunetti book in Venice, or Stieg Larsson in Stockholm -- and it was great fun to walk past a cafe where Gamache had stopped for hot chocolate, or to sit in the Château Frontenac reading about his meeting with the Champlain Society there. (He was in a private dining room upstairs and I was in the Starbucks but it was still fun.)

One more silent night