Quebec Carnival

Last weekend we drove to Quebec City, which is a couple of hours further on from Montreal. It's one of those places you just have to go to, and we took advantage of the winter Carnival festival to see it in the cold months.


Quebec is special. It's been designated by Unesco as a world heritage treasure, and it's walled old city/fort is a maze of narrow winding streets, an old European city in North America.

It obviously attracts lots of visitors, as lots of shops and restaurants seemed to exist only for tourists, but sometimes that's a good thing as it adds to the liveliness of a place. The more the merrier...

(Our hotel)

Bonhomme, the Carnival mascot:

(Note slush on the ground.  Unlike Ottawa where the streets are ploughed regularly, Quebec was a mushy soggy mess underfoot. Fortunately none of us wore thongs or high heels.)

Spectacular ice carvings:

a snow carving competition:

fun for the kids:

and for the big kids, there was Caribou to drink (a unique quebecois concoction made of a mixture of red wine, hard liquor, maple syrup) served in a glass made of ice:

also maple toffee ("taffey") poured on to snow which you then roll on to a stick - yum!

and a go-cart race - unfortunately this little shoe-cart, which looked like it had been designed and built by the kid himself, came a very distant second in his heat (out of 2) but he did get a rousing cheer from the onlookers:

 a canoe race on the St Lawrence River (dodging the ice floes)

and the kids had a dog sled ride, with Silas driving:

One of the things I love about the snow here is the sleds and toboggans that are used to transport little kids and babies.  A stroller or pram is next to useless in the snow (although a local baby boutique sells Bugaboo winter tires!) so most kids are pulled along instead of being pushed.

I think this baby is the cutest of them all, spotted at Carnival on the weekend, sound asleep and snug as a bug in minus-something temperatures: 

Awwww....

I'll leave it at that.