Day 10

We left the ship at 9am and grabbed a cab to the hotel ($9Cad).  After a bit we saw a few people from the ship arrive at the same hotel but they had opted for the cruise line transfer to the hotel.  The cruise line charged $69 per person where the taxi cost $9 for two of us.  What crooks.  We dropped the luggage at the hotel and set out.  We wanted to take a city tour first to get an overview of the city. The concierge at the hotel told us that the day tours left by the archeological museum.  After a 10 minute walk there we figured he was wrong.  After another 15 minute walk to the nearest tourist information office, a girl there told us there were no bus city tours any more because the tourist season was over.  Fortunately, we heard a different guide explaining city tours to another couple.  We got the straight info from him. The city tours left from the tourist information office 1.5 miles away.  We took a taxi and got there 10:45 for the 11am tour.  The 3.5 hour tour was great.  We saw many parts of the city we would not have seen, including the Olympic village, the “mountain” (Mount Royal) that gave Montreal its name, and some areas that used to be working class and poor, but are now gentrified and have interesting post-industrial architecture. After the tour we stopped for lunch and were able to check two local specialties off the list at the same time – smoked meats and Montreal bagels, which are different from New York bagels because they dip them in honey water before baking. We stopped briefly at out hotel (St. James) in Vieux Montreal, and then went out again to continue exploring. We walked till we dropped… about 8 miles. At some point we decided to explore the subterranean city, which is actually marked on the city map. They have 30 some miles of underground passages so they can keep warm in the winter. They are not very clearly marked so we had some difficulty finding our way around the underground, but eventually we did, and we discovered that we had an entrance/exit about half a block from our hotel. Very lucky because it was getting cold.

Day 8 and 9

Our next port of call (Tadusec) was cancelled due to weather and we went on to Quebec. We disembarked around 6pm and walked in the drizzle. We had dinner in a nice French bistro and walked back to the ship. The next morning we went out in the drizzle and found a 2 hour city tour. It was a nice break from walking in the nasty weather. After to tour we walked in the upper city and had a casual lunch, and then walked some more in the upper and lower city.  Total walking mileage for the day was 7.6. I (Bo) managed to do some clothes shopping – stuff that’s very different from what we can buy in California. Quebec is a very pretty town of about 500,000. The old city is pretty compact and walkable, but you have to be prepared to walk up and down a lot. It must be very pleasant and attractive during the summer when the weather is nice, the views are beautiful and there is a lot of outdoor activity. In the freezing drizzle and fog, it’s definitely less appealing. And we can’t imagine walking the steep cobblestone streets in the winter with snow and ice. They probably use tons of salt every winter, which (as our guide told us) lasts about 6 months. One amazing site we saw was a sled slide near the famous Frontenac hotel (supposedly the most photographed hotel in North America). The slide has been there since 1884 and it is 200 feet height, 800 feet long and you can sled at the speed of 44 mph.

Day 6 and 7

Another port of call was cancelled – Sydney, supposedly due to inclement weather and very strong winds. The captain decided to spend the night in Halifax and then proceed directly to Charlottetown on Prince Edward Island. We spent the day at sea reading, eating, drinking and going to lectures. The lectures are probably the best part of the ship’s program – very well researched, informative, interesting and well delivered – all by the same guy, the destination consultant called Niki Sepsas. Day 6 lectures were about Canada’s maritime provinces and about whales and whaling. The night was pretty rough so we docked in Charlottetown two hours late. We put on 5 layers of clothes, scarves, hats and gloves, and braved the arctic cold (33F and 60km per hour wind!) to walk around this pretty town. We visited the cathedral, did  some shopping and had a nice lunch in a local pub. Al bought a Russian fur hat with ear flaps.