Day 2 of Misty's visit

The next morning, Friday, we HAD to go see the Hotel de Glace - the Ice Hotel.

Tours through here are $17.00 each, so you can imagine how expensive it is to actually stay here! (the rooms start at $200 per night and go up to $500..... most are around $300-$350.)

They build this hotel every year during Quebec's Winter Carnival. (February) It is made of tons of packed snow and ice.

This is the front door of the hotel... covered with fur and animal hides:

The lobby with it's ice chandelier is amazing. Many of ice sculptures are lit with changing colors.

Also inside the lobby is a fun slide:

and some VERY cute eskimos:

The entrance to the bar is sculpted out of solid ice:

The drinks in the bar are served in.. basically an ice cube with a hole drilled into the middle:

Each year the hotel is decorated with a theme. This year's theme was about Native Indians. Each room has some carvings that follow that theme.

There are lighs behind the ice carvings, and the bed pedestals, etc. The beds have a thick mattress on top of the ice and then a fur or animal ski on top of that. The idea is that when it's time for bed, you go sit in the spa for 30+ minutes and get your body temperature up. Then you go get into the dry sauna and get dried off and increase your body temperature even more. Then you go to your room and get into a special sleeping bag which is supposed to keep you warm all night. There are no bathrooms in each room so if you have to go in the middle of the night... you are TOAST! .. and COLD toast at that!

They also have an ice chapel on site for people who want to get married there - and apparently there are always a lot who do! Outside are some fun things to do:The first is to have an maple syrup popsicle. Misty wasn't too sure she wanted to try - but we talked her into it... when it Rome, you know....

They pour the maple syrup into a depression in the ice and hand you a tongue depressor.

After a few moments, the syrup starts to get thicker and stickier. Then you begin to roll it onto your tongue depressor.

Then you eat.... YUMMY! This is a very traditional thing to do in Canada. They have these stands at every winter festival and usually at the sugar camps as well!

They also have igloos to play in:

(so glad Senior couples don't have to knock doors!)

and, of course, they have an ice slide...and yes, we did have to try it... I mean, when will we EVER probably be at an Ice Hotel again?

I'm not sure I'd ever want to spend an entire night there, but it certainly was interesting to see! Next stop was Mont Morency Falls. We have been there before but we wanted to show Misty. It was really cold and windy, so we didn't hike all the way across the falls & down, we just went to the bridge over the falls.

Next we would have liked to have gone to St.Anne's canyon. They have a spectacular rope bridge across the canyon and waterfall, but it is closed in the Winter. So, we just stopped to see the beautiful St.Anne's Basilica.

For lunch we took Misty over to Ile d'Orleans for her first taste of "poutine". You know, that crazy dish the love here of fries with gravy and cheese curds. We ordered some that had chicken and peas in it too!

For dessert it was on to our FAVORITE place... Chocolat Favourie, for their fantastic chocolate dipped ice cream cones!!

They make all their own chocolate and it is sooooo GOOD! Obviously they make lots of chocolate bunnies around Easter too! So, with full tummies and 2 full days of sightseeing we got back in the car for our 4 hour drive home to Cornwall. What a great time we had seeing Quebec in the winter!

Misty comes to visit

We picked up Misty at the Pierre-Elliott Trudeau airport in Montreal.

Of course, we HAD to teach her the "French" way of saying hello.. a "biser" ( it is pronounced as bee-zhay) ... on each cheek.We immediately drove about 3 hours up to Quebec City. We thought since we were alread 1/3 of the way there, we might as well show her Quebec first. Of course we started with the big landmark in Quebec - the Chateau Frontenac.When we went to see this last fall, they were giving tours, but they had discontinued that now, sadly! The Chateau Frontenac is a hotel-in the Fairmont chain.

The beautiful boardwalk in the back was under snow now.

But as luck would have it, they have a toboggan there now. So, being the fun-lovers we are, we tried it!!

For $3.50 apiece we rented a toboggan that all three of us would ride:

Dad and Misty pulled it up to the top of the ramp, while I took the pictures.(I'm no dummy):

We all three got on & rode it, so there is no photographic evidence, but my screams are probably still echoing throughout Quebec. Next we looked out over the St.Lawrence River from the boardwalk:

We wanted to take Misty across on the ferry - so we headed for the Funicular which takes you down into the old city. Here is the view from the top.. on the way down:And here is the view from the bottom:It puts you out onto what is supposedly the oldest street in North America- Rue Petite Champlain.
There were alot of ice sculptures along the streets, left over from their Winter Carnival a few weeks before:There was still plenty of snow tho- here's Misty resting on a park bench:We took the ferry over to the south shore of Quebec to a city called Levis (pronounced Lay-vee)

This is what we had to go through:

As we'd go, we'd hit a huge chunk of ice, then it woud crack in half and move to the side. It was so cold that the water where we had just come through would re-freeze behind us!

On the way back, the lights of Quebec city were starting to come on. It's a beautiful sight! It was cold and windy to be out on the deck of the ferry, but the view is so pretty.

On the way back to our hotel, we stopped into this quaint glass-glowing shop. We watched for a long time...it was fascinating!

The furnaces were up to 2600 degrees! The side effect was that watching all this also kept us warm!

We walked back to the same hotel Roger & I had stayed in when we visited here in Oct. What a great first day. It was fun to play the tourist guide.