Thursday, August 4, 2011

Back!

John and I spent a wonderful week in Quebec, the old town part. We spent a few days there last summer and enjoyed it so much we went back. It is like Europe you can drive to. Unless you live in Europe... and can drive anywhere you want. We love the French food and the culture. The museums we went to are very state of the art. The Ballet Russe exhibit at the Fine Arts museum had film of dances performed over the years projected within 3d standing screens as well as costumes by DeChirico and Picasso. The Rome exhibit at the Museum of Civilization had an exhibit called FONTANA DI ROMA  which was film of a fountain's water running continuously within a 3 sided pedestal on which scenes from La Dolce Vita (one of my all time favorites) and other movies filmed in Rome were shown through the rushing water which was verrry surreal and I could have just watched that all day but John wanted to have lunch instead. I do like film projections! And food. The lunch at the Fine Arts museum should be on exhibit as well. Beautifully presented and exquisitely tasty. I have tried to duplicate the cucumber gazpacho since we've been home.
We also walked all over the city.
It's just a lovely place and there are lots of shops. All kinds of fashion and clothing stores and great jewelry. Oh, for the days when the US dollar meant SO much more when traveling in Canada. I did get a pretty snappy stretchy gray and black long sleeved shirt and a fancy Quebec t-shirt. Objects of desire.
          On our romantic getaway!
The old town area has a beautiful, long boardwalk with pavilions overlooking the St. Lawrence and looking up at the Hotel Frontenac (photo above, with trompe l'oeil scaffolding). You can spend all day there just watching people walk up and down and checking out fashions and styles for future cartoon references.
We also went on the Funiculaire... a sideways elevator lift thing that takes you down to the lower part of town. I am not a fan of heights:


It looks nice at night:

We had a fab time but because we have our big garden...

 (and 3 cats!)
we had to get back. 
And a big thank you to Joyce for feeding and watering cats and plants!