WEDNESDAY, MAY 29th:

This was our free day until the train leaves for Halifax, Nova Scotia tonight. We returned to Cafe Paillard for breakfast for croissant and coffee. Peter, our tour leader, had said he was going to Montmorency Falls to reconnoitre for a future tour and said anyone was welcome to join him. About a dozen took up that possibility. However, I had decided that I wanted to spent some time at the Musee des Beaux Arts de Quebec which was about half an hour away on foot. My route took me past the Quebec Parliament building which I was able to photograph up close. There was a one lady protest outside where placards told she was not allowed to export the maple syrup she had made. then I walked down the  Grand Avenue de L'Ouest and the Avenue George VI and along the Plains of Abraham. I realised that Quebec City is an easy city to negotiate  and orientate oneself in. The Museum brings together early French-Canadian artifacts and paintings, and very modern, abstract works of art. The top floor has a fascinating collection of some 2,600 Inuit artifacts  from the Arctic regions of Canada. It was time well spent. As I left the forecast rain arrived and I waited barely two minutes for the No. 11 bus that took me to the Place d'Youville and then the short walk back to the hotel. By the late afternoon many of our tour group were seated in the foyer. It is a very good group to be in and conversation and laughter flowed. Just before 6pm we went up the Rue Saint Jean with Monica and Mike from Rainford, St Helens and we found again a small, intimate restaurant Au Petit Coin Latin, and shared raclette as our main dish, a communal meal in itself, which one cooks oneself on a central heating circle placed in the middle of the table. Robert and I had snails as a starter (not bad at only $1.95 for six! We very much enjoyed. Chatting with the patron.

   Also in the restaurant was a school group from Vermont over the border in the USA who were with their French teacher on an educational visit. It was rather like the feeding of the five thousand in that their teacher spent about a quarter of an hour putting in trays all the raclette ingredients that had not been eaten. She told me that it would all go into sandwiches for tomorrow. Judging from the amount left, there would be enough to feed them until their return to the USA on Friday!

 Soon after we returned to the hotel the bus arrived to take us the half an hour or so journey to Charny Station across the St Lawrence from Quebec City. It was a small station and the waiting room soon filled; however the wait was not long and we were soon called to our sleeping compartments on, in our case, coach 23. Prior to boarding I chatted to a young man sitting next to me from Bielefeld, Germany who had been in Canada for the last ten months. After some time in the bar on the train chatting, it was time to get to bed and soon the train was making its way through the night from Quebec towards New Brunswick.