Montreal and Quebec City, Redux

Wa-a-a-ay redux!

My first travel experience to another country was a trip to Montreal when I was 4. I remember donning a yellow slicker and riding on 'The Maid of the Mist' to Niagara Falls. I remember staying at a B&B , then called a "tourist home," next to an orchard. The family had a fruit stand and let me sit on the stand and "help" sell apples. And I remember the Montreal home of Madame Nicole, who had been a circus dwarf and lived in a rowhouse somewhere in Montreal. I was enchanted that the furniture and bathroom and kitchen fixtures were just my size. I remember being enchanted. Madame Nicole herself bade her visitors farewell at the exit to the house. There she was -- about my height but with a large, adult head. I remember starting to cry and my father carrying me out. This may have gotten twisted in my memory, because I can find no reference to Madame Nicole by Googling. But it is etched indelibly in my mind.

A decade later, we came to Quebec City. We wandered old cobblestoned streets. We stayed in a small inn along Grand Allée Est. We roamed the quiet and picturesque streets of the old city. French was spoken all around. We watched a Buckingham Palace-style changing of the guard. We drove out of the city to the rural Isle d'Orleans, the cascade of Montomorency Falls, and the forested highway to Chicoutimi. And we ate two or three times at Restaurant Le Vendome. It was the first time I had tasted real French onion soup, any boeuf bourginonne other than beef stew into which some well-meaning Connecticut cook had poured some lousy red wine and creme caramel that was way better than any custard pudding I had every eaten. I felt like a real sophisticate.

I have been in both cities on and off over the years, both summer and winter. I visited Montreal earlier this week. Since my childhood visit, the entire Province of Quebec has flirted with secession from Canada. Montreal has hosted a World's Fair (1967) and a Summer Olympics (1976), and has remade itself into a modern, international city with notable architecture and a distinctive flair. I am in Quebec City now. It is more beautiful than ever -- romantic in yesterday's drizzle and dazzling in today's brilliant sunshine. And Le Vendome is still here (36 Cote de la Montagne, Quebec City; 418-692-0557).

Those first two visits were largely responsible for my yen to travel (crying at Madame Nicole's notwithstanding) and eventually choosing to write about it. It's good to be back to my travel-writing roots.