Montreal and Quebec - French Canada

I wasn't quite prepared for the degree of French dominance in French-speaking Canada - so it has taken me a day or two to adjust mentally to the language barrier. Hester, of course, has taken it all in her stride after some initial doubts. Her language skills still continue to amaze me.

Driving east from Toronto along the lake into the province of Quebec and our first stop in Montreal was straight and boring - real flood plains and swamp/marshes, dual carriage way the whole way along.

As soon as we crossed the border into the province of Quebec it was BOOM - French everything! The marked difference surprised me a lot - in the rest of Canada, virtually everything is dual labelled in English/French. But not in Quebec - with typical French arrogance, not a single road sign is dual labelled in English, despite the rest of Canada doing the right thing by dual-labelling in French.

The difference is so marked, I would suggest it feels like a completely different country. Walking down the street in Montreal the majority of people speak French. The streets and buildings are very European in architecture and the style and fashion of the ppl walking down the streets hits you. The fashionistas really come out in this place - beautiful people everywhere.

Montreal, especially Old Montreal is very nice, lots of al fresco dining and a shopping paradise down the main street. We only had one night there, but enjoyed it thoroughly. Montreal is a mis-mash of English and French languages - in a cafe we stopped in at, the ppl working there conversed in a combination of French and English!

We made the most of our short time in Montreal and then continued east towards Quebec City - known simply as Quebec - which is about a 3hr drive. We moved on with a little trepidation - from what we'd read, and heard from locals, Quebec ppl tend to only converse in French and won't even bother speaking English to you... as it turns out, thats not really true in our experience - as long as you make an effort to converse in French initially. Luckily, I have Hester

Compared to Montreal Quebec is really a town, not a city - Montreal has a population of around 3.9million, whereas Quebec is only 190,000. From what Ive read, it swells due to tourism tho, which is not surprising once you see the place.

The Old Town in Quebec is North Americas only walled city - and is on the U.N.'s World Heritage listing. It's spectacularly European, with old cobble-stoned streets and beautiful buildings. We wandered the old town today and being quite compact everything is within walking distance.

The French-ness of this place is really something - I (perhaps) naively expected "French Canada" to be like the rest of Canada but with some citizens simply speaking French, but really being a true dual-language country. However, it seems the French-speakers very strongly hold on to their heritage and everything is exceptionally French dominated as a result. They really could break off Quebec into its own country and not much would change IMO. I wonder how much seperation the rest of Canada feels from Quebec and vice-versa.

We will find somewhere nice for dinner tonight, then tomorrow we're flying to NYC for some shopping and the real NY experience. I have no doubts it will be somewhat different to our French-Canada experience!

Canada has been great - we'd recommend it to anybody - the diversity of the place is great and the Canadian Rockies is definitely something not to be missed.

We'll write next from the Big Apple!

Craig and Hesti