The "Belle Province" us
welcome
Quebec airport under a beautiful, barely cool sun.
We wait there a little, next to extension works (project called " YQB 2018 »), Before disposing of the rental car at the appointed time reserved, a small white Chevrolet in the trunk of which only a suitcase fits; we hardly regret not having chosen, since it was possible, a more spacious car. But basta! Everything is fine.
Little traffic at this airport, whose activity should increase when US customs are postponed here for international flights; he will then become a " pre-clearance center American ”for passengers traveling to or in transit to the USA. The decision seems soon to be taken according to the dailies.
When I got to know Quebec, the beautiful capital of the no less " Beautiful Province " Half a century ago, the photo was film of course and much more in black and white.
Quebec does not suffer in its topography or in its multiple points of interest from its comparison with the great metropolis of Montreal. Because of comparison point: so different, each one has its attractions and its problems.
For tourists not looking for town planning, asphalt and the very big city first, Quebec City is almost perfect. Weren't the big ones congestion »Peak-hour traffic.
Quebec, a very pleasant lodging in Boischâtel
Via the Félix-Leclerc highway which winds in the valley of the St-Charles River, we reach our 1st accommodation point in Boischâtel , a village in the eastern suburbs of Quebec on the north shore of the great river, just after the superb Montmorency fall. .
Beautiful lodging very recommendable; the talkative, young and dynamic hostess provides information on all the attractions of the area and pampers her clients and her rooms. These are so precious that you have to take your shoes off in the small reception area at the entrance before taking the stairs that go up there.
Beautiful view from the dining room equipped with an enormous stove with resplendent brass by dint of being an oven, a true art object representative of the superb Quebec wood stoves of the 1st half of the 20th century. Quality breakfast with local products.
The panorama to the southwest is splendid: the suspension bridge with two high pillars leads to the Île d'Orléans opposite, and in the distance to the west stands on the high promontory of Cap Diamant the imposing silhouette of Quebec with its few large buildings.
At its foot in the port anchor that day two cruise ships, in the bay which seems to close where the river narrows.
It is easy to understand why the rock-outcrop between the river and the mouth of the St-Charles river was chosen as the site of the conquerors: a wide and deep bay where the most imposing ships can access, a narrowing, obligatory path upstream, finally an (almost) impregnable height from which one can control any passage which in ancient times was only fluvial.
Overlooking the white liners is the Château Frontenac, while in the foreground the first reddening of the maple trees appear in the neighboring farm.
The bridge to Île d'Orléans stretches out like a fragile arch.
The long balcony street which crosses the village of Boischâtel is the opulent archetype of a Quebec village: beautiful wooden houses spaced apart, surrounded by a lawn rarely delimited by a little hedge, a few flowers, very little vegetable garden, often a garage for cars. Nothing in principle differentiates them from their American neighbors, the “lawn houses”.
The exterior electric and telephone wires, carried by poles, form a dense layer between the two sides of the street, which spoils the picturesque a little. Does winter make it more difficult to bury cables, which is an obligation in our villages?
A wooden gallery, sometimes richly decorated with beautiful valances, more or less envelopes the main body. There, the essential, almost mythical and ancestral object is the rocking chair , a “rocking chair”, often displayed ostentatiously as a nostalgic legacy of a past that is still deeply rooted. However, in the seven good months that make the winter, the slow rocking of the chair is practicable only inside.
The entrance, generally raised above the ground, is only accessible by a staircase of a few steps from which the snow must be cleared in winter.
As in the Scandinavian countries, there from the beautiful season this need for solar enjoyment, however more profitable here in these latitudes where the day / night differentiation is less marked than in the North: the city of Quebec is at the latitude of Châteauroux for example, much further to the South than Oslo in Norway; and Montreal to that of Royan .
Quebec, picturesque houses and villages
The variety of construction surprises. The roofs and some walls are of wood shingles. But many roofs are made of thick sheet metal (zinc?) Painted in often bright colors.
Where does this architecture come from? Influence of the big neighbor to the South?
Apart from the initial houses which reproduced in stone the Norman or Beauceron houses, specialists report a real Quebec originality , of which, on the contrary, the influence overflowed in its time towards the immediate South.
The English presence also leaves superb and picturesque testimonies for example on the south-eastern coast of the village of Sainte-Pétronille on the island of Orleans (of which we admire the finely decorated lambrequins). But also old Protestant chapels such as Stoneham or Tadoussac, to which French-speaking Catholics responded, but also Irish Catholics with the construction of churches.
The latter felt closer to the French in Canada by their religion and their opposition to the English.
Coquette variants of the severe stone houses, particularly Norman ones, or even wooden trading posts from the early days of the fur industry (eg in Tadoussac), the oldest Quebec houses offer two different roof configurations with remarkable picturesque character.
One has a pointed ridge profile with two symmetrical slopes in circumflex accent, also called " pitched roof », Evoking a straw hat of yesteryear, one of those we imagine worn in summer by a young girl with red cheeks.
We take advantage of the projection of the eaves to cover a gallery; the slope is sometimes open with dormers.
The roof of the other has two successive sides whose outer edges are almost vertical. It is called " donkey roof "; often with sloping ceilings with dormer windows. This configuration is an embellished variation of old barns with almost similar roofs.
The less inclined upper slope is called “terrasson” and the lower slope more abruptly “brisis”, almost an anthology of beautiful words of carpenters.
It is often found without embellishment on farms, but also in beautiful pleasure houses or the effect of brisis rolled up, arched, almost stretched is accentuated to give more elegance.
The overall shape is reminiscent of an ancestral female headdress.
When the eaves extend long enough, it also houses a gallery, as in a house in Boischâtel near Montmorency Falls or on Île d'Orléans.
In this type of architecture, the roof is sometimes 4-sided and has dormer windows, bringing even more rich imagination, as in this one on the Baie-Saint-Paul side.
Other times, the eaves double above the gallery like these 1st type houses in Lévis on the south shore of the St-Laurent opposite Quebec.
In all cases, the less sophisticated of them have simple slopes with straight slopes; they are more numerous when one moves away from more prosperous places or that one enters distant villages.
Wooden houses often wiser, more modern, less picturesque, which lose in originality and more like their neighbors in the USA, but still neat, well maintained.
It is not uncommon to see the owner carefully repaint the planks of the walls or barriers in this beautiful late season.
On the south shore, houses in the village of Saint-Martin-de-Bellechasse bring together all the examples cited in a single, pleasant panorama.
The other unmissable characteristic of the Quebec village is its church with its pyramidal bell tower, pointed like an awl.
The roof and the sharp bell tower are painted a dazzling silver color under the sun; and which from other angles fades and retracts.
Most were built in the 19th century. But some, carefully preserved and maintained, are older.
In the villages, with this very North American sense of private property and the constraints of the climate, it is difficult to find places free parking elsewhere than in the car parks around the church.
Wood and stone or brick, varying the finesse of the bell tower, here is for example the church of Beaumont on the south bank, in the view below, and that of Saint-Vallier on the left.
All of them border on the inevitable presbytery, the size and architecture of which until the 1970s reflected opulence and power, the very richness of the Catholic religion, barely emerging from the so-called "period". of the great darkness » Which we already heard about 50 years ago . Yet already began its decline, which nowadays is manifested by the impossibility of maintaining certain religious buildings and therefore the need to sell them.
In any case, there remain these presbyteries like that of Sainte-Pétronille on its mound at the back of the church on the Île d'Orléans, that of Stoneham, more modest. that of Saint-Fidèle after La Malbaie towards the North, to name only three examples. The prelate's peace of mind was to place this building at a measured distance from the church; he incorporates the architectural style and the materials including the church is built or trimmed.
Other much more imposing buildings, often surmounted by a campanile or a steeple, still express today this ancient power, often reconverted. in education.
Below a very massive religious school next to the church of Lévis and to the right the church of the Ursulines in the old town of Quebec, then below the church of Baie-Saint-Paul and the religious brick building all attached.
Elsewhere, it is still the case when we leave Quebec towards the airport. or on the western shores of Lac Saint-Jean, one often meets powerful seminaries, or what remains of them since the vocation does not cease to weaken (eg that of the city of Quebec).
Quebec, Montmorency Falls
Less than 2 km west of Boischâtel, on the clifftop coast overlooking the left bank of the St. Lawrence, here is the famous and powerful outflow of the Montmorency river. Rightly, the province prides itself on its height of 84 meters, more than 30 meters higher than those of Niagara, but much narrower.
The beautifully landscaped small park where squirrels run dominates the battle plains where Wolfe faced Montcalm before going to defeat him on the Plains of Abraham. From there, you reach a suspended footbridge overhanging the foaming break. Just upstream, it is the perfect and even smooth of the river; downstream, almost vertically, the rumbling bubbling shatters as it bounces off the glistening rocks.
From there we can see the bridge towards Île d'Orléans, Quebec to the west, and on the slope of the cliff to the east of the waterfall, along the steep zigzag of a wooden staircase, the bravest of which climb the 487 steps from the bottom. It is reminiscent of a noria path of Chinese workers or a setting from a kung fu movie.
For fun and the less impressionable, a zip line crosses the top of the fall to the west; it ends on a belvedere platform from which the panorama is also magnificent.
Another time, we approach the fall from the bottom. We must be careful not to use the parking lot with a daily fee of $ 12 regardless of the time of arrival (for us, it was around 4 p.m.). Because you just have to walk along the river side of the railway line to the west, then cross it at the traffic lights ( at the " light ") After (e) and then return along the street that runs alongside the the other side.
After passing at the foot of a lost arm of the fall which bounces off the rocks and which is called " the bride's veil », 10 minutes on foot are enough to get there afterwards. We must therefore speak of falls rather than falls.
Little chilly wind, feeling of cold increased by the sea spray drop foot and humidity.
But the spectacle is also superb there.
From 50 years ago , I keep the memory of an almost deserted place, today much more developed, and in winter, enormous “ dunes »Of ice at the foot of the waterfall, then also frozen than the vertical layers of ice through which water continues to make its way (view captured on the internet).
But memory plays tricks: the dimensions of the site are much more impressive visually than in the recesses of my failing memory. Even if from the Île d'Orléans, all that remains is a high white tongue on the dark cliff whose remoteness and the pale light of that day tarnish its appeal.
Boischâtel or is it Montmorency is dominated at the steep top of its cliff by a sort of large church with twin openwork steeples which dominates the steep slope of the streets.
Quebec roads know little about switchbacks and often go short on the steepest line. We can see it a little on the promontory of Quebec City itself, but also for example on arrival in Chicoutimi by the North shore of the Saguenay when we descend towards the bridge which crosses it, or else while descending in a mountain landscape towards the village of Sainte Rose du Nord at the edge of the same very imposing river.
Be careful, salting and / or sanding in winter ...
It is also an opportunity to observe the existence of these " community mailboxes » , Grouping perhaps 60 boxes in a sort of large cupboard. sidewalk.
Everyone who lives in the neighborhood comes there to pick up their mail with their own key. Like an annex to the post office across the street.
Is the system recent, or is the civic spirit of the inhabitants perfect? In any case, neither degradation nor tag on this street furniture.
De fait, la décision de « Postes Canada » de ne plus livrer le courrier en zone urbaine grâce à ces armoires a été prise en 2013, mais donne encore lieu à débats, notamment par rapport aux autorisations municipales dont « Postes Canada » est dégagé (Radio Canada juin 2015).