Ivan & Karen chilling out from their balcony at La Pinsonniere in La Malbaie, Canada.
Actually, it was all my fault. I was in a very heated argument with my business partner and we were so hot on the phone that I think we caused the whole electricity grid to burn out. All’s I know is that we were on the phone, my whole office was watching, and then all of a sudden the line goes dead and we are all standing there like “duh?”
The difference between this and 9/11 is that when you looked outside the window, people were standing around Macy’s (where my office is) lining up for transportation and public telephones. On 9/11 they were running down the street looking for cover. One fellow had a guitar and a battery-operated amplifier and kept playing music — I said to the policeman at the corner, “Is this a great city — the music never stops.” Very few people today think to have battery operated radios and it was about 10 blocks walking before I got to one playing on the street. People first wanted to know that it was not a local incident and that it was not terrorism. It was a long walk home that night, a bit over an hour, and by the time I got close to my home it was so dark outside on the street running alongside Central Park that you could not see if someone was right in front of you. It was also a good time to have a cheap telephone that doesn’t need electricity to work. Cellphones didn’t work and all these people kept staring at their cellphones hoping they would work, hopelessly deprived and lost in their own space.
The next morning the lights came on at about 6am. I was supposed to leave with Karen the night before for a stop and smell the roses weekend in Canada to have some quiet time before turning to wedding preparations (something I would recommend to other engaged couples). The Thursday night flight of course was cancelled. That morning she managed to win the fight with ten others over the first car service cab that came into the neighborhood that was willing to take us to New Jersey to the Newark airport (no electricity means no gas because no pumps working) and of course he attempted to charge us triple the normal price (and we settled for double). She managed to reach me by phone and within 5 minutes I was downstairs on the go and my super let me back into the building to get my bag out of the office on the way to the airport (this is a good time to remind people to tip their supers very well because this is when you get the flashlight and escort in a 45 story office building). We reached Newark hoping to go standby and managed to get a confirmed seat out (evidently there had been cancellations overnight) and by early afternoon we were happy campers lunching in air conditioning at a table by the window with a flutist on the cobblestone street background in Quebec City.
There are previous articles on the site about Quebec. I have been many places over the past 12 years since my first visit here and I still rate this as one of my favorite places. Just over an hour’s flying time from New York, Quebec remains a great little secret. It has charm, great food, quaint historical walking areas and it is surrounded by beautiful country.
The two hour drive to the La Malbaie area is one of the nicest 2 hour drives you will find anywhere within an international airport. Route 362 offers a bit of scenic detour off the main road 138 and it pays to take the detour. Our weekend is at La Pinsonniere, a 26 room hotel which is part of the Relais & Chateaux chain of properties, offering true personalized service and a private and luxurious experience in a naturally wonderful setting that sets the table for a very romantic weekend, even if it winds raining for half the weekend. We had a suite facing the sea with a large deck. For an extra $100 (all prices USD), two people can have breakfast and dinner. It is worth the money and the dining room on the property is excellent and intrinsic to the experience. Things you can do there include having a picnic on the grounds (they will prepare a basket), taking a tour of the impressive wine cellar, getting treatments in the spa (very reasonably priced), and taking a nature walk down to the sea. Within 15 minutes drive there are other scenic areas along the sea to walk around and picnic and enjoy fields of rocks, inlets with sailboats and little bed and breakfasts that offer the scenery at less cost. There is a very pretty golf course nearby as well as a casino. Day trips in this Charlevoix region include going on a boat to see whales and fjords or going down a boat on a gorge with calm waters (allow 6 hours for each of these two daytrips). Last year I was in this region and stayed in the Manoir de Richelieu, a Fairmont hotel property, and found it a bit boring and impersonal. This was much better and I had high expectations that were not disappointed in the least. Standing on the deck watching the dusk, you could not tell where the clouds began and the water ended. It was just stunning and unforgettable and I hope that the Italian coast looks as good when we intend to go there next April.
Back in Quebec City, the Chateau Frontenac, the leading hotel in the city and part of the Fairmont chain, has a great restaurant called La Champlain. It is one of the best in Canada and the food and presentation were as good as its reputation. Actually, we didn’t find any bad food anywhere on this trip. A good idea is to book the table via the hotel’s concierge. We got a coupon for free drinks as well as the best table in the restaurant and even wound up watching the fireworks from our seat. Afterward, a horse and carriage ride is a great evening activity ($40 USD for 40 minutes). On Sunday night and Monday, the town is much less crowded than on Friday or Saturday and it is not a bad idea to consider making Quebec a Sunday night stopover after a weekend in the Charlevoix region. Our hotel of choice here was the Clarendon, a grand dame hotel a few blocks from the Chateau Frontenac right across from city hall but half the price and much more convenient. The Frontenac is a bit busy and the rooms can be small. At least at the Clarendon you won’t feel you are overpaying.
Take the funicular from the Frontenac entrance to the lower part of the city by the port. I had tended to ignore this part in previous trips and that is a mistake. Here is the Museum of Civilization and it is worth an hour with a good assortment of temporary and permanent exhibits. It is a lovely area to walk around and on St. Paul Street a few blocks left from the train station if you were exiting the station there are some attractive restaurants that would be worth going to next time around. By the way, the train station is very pretty and has a nice park in front of it. A good lunch activity is the revolving rooftop restaurant at the Loews Concorde Hotel; allow 75 minutes to make a full revolution and the buffet lunch is less than $20. Near the hotel are parks, homes and streets with nightlife. Actually, anywhere you walk in Quebec City it is charming; it is the only city in North America still surrounded by a wall and it is a UNESCO protected site.
Remember to save your boarding passes and original receipts and to get a VAT refund brochure. You can get back taxes on your hotel room and various goods and services related to short term accommodation.
It is a 20 minute fixed price taxi ride to the airport (about $20) and we arrived almost an hour before departure to find the checkout counter locked. Turns out the flight was scheduled to leave half an hour earlier than my e-ticket printout. We ran up the escalator to passport control and demanded to be let aboard; we were running with our bags on the tarmac to the waiting plane. Among this region’s pleasures are a small airport and very good attitude toward tourists by just about everyone we met. People will walk you to your destination and go the extra length for you and we felt that warmth (which we didn’t feel in other places we’ve visited, so that counts for something in deciding where to spend one’s weekends). Also to be considered is that the dollar provides excellent value in Canada; prices are reasonable and you can get a real discount on world-class food, services and accommodations that would cost a great deal more in the US or in Europe.
Flights from Quebec clear customs in the US. We arrived back in New York to find things back to normal and were exceedingly happy to be chilling out in cool and serene Canada while the City spent its weekend sorting things out.
