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My wife and I take turns in deciding where to go on our family's summer vacation. One year I choose, the next year she chooses. This year is my turn so many months ago I decided we would go to Quebec in order to spend a few days in Quebec City celebrating the 400th Anniversary of the founding of that beautiful French Canadian town. Once we decided on the dates I went to work on our itinerary. I decided we would spend the weekend of July 4th in Quebec City in order to enjoy the beginning of the Quebec Summer Festival and the special events from the 400th Anniversary. There will be a Commemorative Show in front of the Place de l'Assemblée-Nationale (Parliament Building) with Samuel Champlain himself (the founder of Quebec City). “Québec plein la rue” series will bring the biggest international street performance companies to Quebec city on that weekend.
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Quebec City is the trip's anchor so-to-speak. I also chose to drive instead of flying this time in order to do the Chemin du Roy, the historical route from Montreal to Quebec City that you pretty much can only see if you drive. It's supposed to be a very picturesque trip visiting towns that go back to the days of New France when the Saint Lawrence river was the main means of communication. We will leave Toronto on July 3d, stop in Montreal for the night (approximately a 6 hour drive), and continue on to the Chemin du Roy on July 4th arriving in Quebec City in the afternoon. On July 7 we leave Quebec City and drive to La Malbaie in the region of Charlevoix where we will stay for two nights and make it our centre of operations to explore the area. On the 8th we will be driving to Tadoussac, one of the oldest villages in Canada - a former fur trading centre from the 17th Century - to catch a whale watching and fjord boat tour. After the tour we will explore Tadoussac and then head back to La Malbaie. On July 9th we will leave Charlevoix and drive back to Montreal or the Montreal area (I haven't decided yet if we stay one night in the Cantons de l'Est - a beautiful area a bit East of Montreal). All in all I will be driving about 2,000 kms on the trip, but we're prepared with a lot of music for the road (including my favourite chanteuse Quebecoise - Isabelle Boulay -to get in the French mood).
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Once I had the dates the next step was booking a hotel in Quebec City (the other stops could wait). When I need to book hotels I use mostly two websites, InterContinental Hotels and Resorts and Expedia. On this occassion I found a modestly priced hotel in the area of Ste Foy in Quebec City called the Gourverneur Hotel. I had heard of the brand because my tour operator client in Mexico sells packages that include Gouverneur hotels. I chose it because we wanted to be away from the old city so that we can have more of a quiet time at night after a day of exploring and celebrating. And also because this hotel has a swimming pool, an amenity hard to find in the old city. My family and I like access to swimming pools (or lakes) in the summer.
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Because of the 400th Anniversary Celebrations, I booked the hotel in Quebec City months ago. But we also need accommodations in the other spots we will visit. For the first night in Montreal I chose one of the Holiday Inn Hotels in the area, the Holiday Inn Select Montreal-Ctr Vle-Dwtn Conv Ctr very close to Old Montreal. I am very familiar with Holiday Inn hotels and all the IHG hotels in Canada because my Canada en Espanol sites are IHG affiliates. Charlevoix was a bit tricky because I am not familiar with the area as I am with Montreal and Quebec City. But I knew I wanted to go to Tadoussac to see the town and go on a whale watching tour. At first I conisdered staying in Tadoussac proper and did a Google search for accommodations. The search took me to BonjourQuebec.com and Tadoussac.com. I found some hotel options in Tadoussac, but I wasn't convinced we should stay there. I remembered that the Fairmonts have a hotel in Charlevoix, the Manoir Richelieu. Having experienced several Fairmont hotels in Canada I liked the idea of staying at the Manoir, but I needed to know how far from Tadoussac the hotel is. So I went to Google Maps, in my opinion one of the best travel planning tools on the Web. I use Google maps on my websites and for my own trips (like my March trip to Berlin and our New Year's trip to New York this year). I went to my Quebec Map and looked for directions from La Malbaie to Tadoussac and found out that Tadoussac is only about one hour and a half from the Manoir. That did it. I called Fairmont and booked the room (I called instead of booking online because I had questions about offers I got in the mail and to make sure the room had an extra bed or pullout sofa for our daughter).
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Now we have accommodations for Montreal, Quebec and La Malbaie. I just need to book one more night for July 9th. As for the rest of the trip I continue to study our route on Google Maps and also the site for the Chemin du Roy. As for other aspects of the trip, I checked out what was going on in Montreal on the 3d and lucked out because it just so happens that the Festival International de Jazz de Montreal is taking place then and I found tickets to one of the concerts - a pair of virtuosi guitar players originally from Mexico but who became famous in Europe - Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero who went from street buskers to jazz stages everywhere. I think I know which whale watching tour I want us to take, the Whales and Fjords - but I hope to talk to my friend Isabelle Longpré at AML Croisierès in Tadoussac for her recommendation before I book one of the tours.
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As for the driving, I know gas is very expensive these days, but not enough to stay home, at least not for us. We'll probably log 2,100 kms on our trip. We'll be using our new car which gives us 100 kms per 10.6 litres of gas. That should be about 222 litres. Assuming $1.45 per litre our gas expense will be around $325 give or take. Not bad, considering the price of airfares.
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ciao and bon voyage,
Jaime
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