If you want a real taste of Europe without crossing the pond, come to Quebec. In Place Royale, they have refurbished all the buildings that are right out of a French town. This area of the city was the first French settlement founded in 1608. There are flowers in window boxes all over town, gardens are beautiful, and landscapes are meticulous. Place Royale is on the same level as the St. Lawrence Seaway, but above (far above) is the walled city. There is an elevator that will take you to “upper town”, but we took the stairs, which became our constant rationalization for indulging on goodies. We got a lot of mileage out of those stairs. We also took a 2 hour bus tour to get the overview and some history. Didn’t find any amazing restaurants (one OK, one mediocre), but I am sure there are some.

To live in this beautiful city, you would have to love winter – they have lots of it and spend $40 million a year on snow removal.

After two days of being in the city, we headed to the Cote-de-Beaupre area, including the Montmorency Falls – 1 ½ times higher than Niagra Falls, as the Quebecois proudly reminded us.

Dick developed a rash yesterday, which Dr. Schneider got on WebMD to diagnose, and as it turns out, diagnose correctly. The little picture of the shingles rash looked just like Dicks back and side. We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting in the waiting room of a walk-in clinic. The dr. was great and said

that she could give him a prescription that would shorten the duration and lessen the severity, but that it only works if started within 3 days of the outbreak. I am so glad we didn’t wait. He’s itchy, but OK.

Our last day in Quebec was spent on the Ile d’ Orleans – a rural island about 67 km around with art galleries, shops, and food/wine stands and stores. We walked on the beach, stopped at a wonderful little French bakery, bought some of those amazing Quebec strawberries, did a little wine tasting and buying, and called it a day.

Our Quebec province experience was a good one, and as usual, there is so much more exploring to be done there – the Laurentian mountains, the Quebec cheese route, etc. We found the people in both cities to be very helpful, and most in a service position spoke fluent English. Dick, of course, pronounced as he does pretty much every where we go, that the people here don't know how to drive. For you RVers, in Quebec City, we stayed at Camping Aeoroport just a few minutes from the city. It is a bit on the pricy side ($33 CD), but well worth it – very clean and well run, and WiFi for $15/week.