Day 3

Well, our last day in Quebec City was an adventure.  It appears that our Connecticut bus was not built for the Canadian cold.  Before we left this morning, we learned that our bus had some issues, so we took our tour of Quebec City on a bus from a local company.  Our bus company has already sent us a new bus, so we are in good shape for the rest of the tour.


Once that was all settled, we picked up our hilarious tour guide, Linda, who briefly showed us around Lower Quebec City, including the site where the French scenes from the movie "Catch Me if you Can" were shot.  (My favorite movie!)

Then, we headed off to St. Anne's Basilica, an enormous and beautiful church, just outside of the city. The acoustics in this space were spectacular, and the orchestra sounded great during our performance.  Despite the fact that it was at 1:30 on a Monday afternoon, we had an appreciative audience, including another tour group from Rochester, New York, who we ran into at our next tour stop!

After our performance, we had a bus tour with Linda of Quebec City.  On the way back into the city, we stopped at a 150-year-old bakery where we had some fantastic fresh bread with maple butter, as well as Montmorency Falls, a waterfall 100 feet taller than Niagra (but not as wide).  Once back in the city, Linda took us through Upper QC, the Old City, and then dropped us back in the lower city where the students had some shopping time.

Tonight's dinner was great.  We went to Chemin du Roy, a sugar shack about twenty minutes from our hotel.  Upon arrival, we were given a demonstration on how they make maple products from the sap of their trees.  We then moved into the restaurant area, and had a simple, but hearty, family style meal.  The food was good, but the real highlight of the evening was the atmosphere.  The fiddle player at restaurant kept us busy in between courses.  First, he taught us how to play the wooden spoons, which culminated in a very loud, but entertaining jam session.  Then, we learned the contradance.  The kids were pretty impressive dancers, and there was a lot of laughing.  After dessert number one, crepes and maple syrup, we headed outside for dessert number two.  For this, we made our own maple taffy in the snow! It was very delicious, and very sweet.

Tomorrow, we head to Montreal to give our final performance of the tour, and now we're off to see if the sugar crash has set in yet.  Here's hoping.....

We have a ton of pictures from today, as well  as some video from our performance, so we will be posting more soon!