Day 7: The Plains of Abraham and Montmorency Falls

A sunny morning! Walked out to the Plains of Abraham, so named not for biblical reasons but for Abraham Martin (1589–1664), a fisherman and river pilot known as The Scot who moved to Quebec City in 1635 with his wife Marguerite Langlois and received 32 acres of land from the Company of New France. On 13 September 1759, the area was the scene of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, a decisive battle in the Seven Years' War which led to Québec and, later, all of Canada being taken by the British from the French. Both the French and British generals, Montcalm and Wolfe, died in the battle. 

The Plains of Abraham

In the afternoon I joined a group from the hostel and took the bus to Montmorency Falls. At 84 metres, they are 30 metres higher than Niagara Falls. The falls were given their name in 1613 by Samuel de Champlain, in honour of Henri II, Duc de Montmorency, who served as viceroy of New France from 1620 until 1625. The falls are accessed via a suspension bridge and then, if one cares to go to the bottom and get splashed, a wooden staircase. Local people run up and down this staircase for exercise, thereby saving on gym membership fees! 

Day 6: Walking tour of Québec and ferry to Lévis

This morning I woke up to find myself alone. Well actually I was surrounded by five other sleeping women in my dorm - but all of them strangers to me. The rest of the band had gone - some back to Italy and some on to New York. The good thing about staying in hostels, though, is that you are never really alone. I signed up for the morning walking tour of Vieux Québec and set off to explore some more with a small group of hostel guests and our tour guide, Claude.

Walking tour of Québec

Claude speculates on how that cannonball came to be inside that tree trunk

Claude was very informative and told us a lot about the city’s four-hundred-year history. Between his history lesson and Francine’s socio-cultural analysis, I have learned a lot of things I didn’t know about this part of my own country!

The last place we visited on our tour was the French library and cultural centre, in what used to be a church, followed by a quick stop outside the English library, in what used to be a prison. Both looked like perfect places to set up my office for the afternoon, conveniently located right around the corner from the hostel! After a quick lunch of falafel I set up shop in the English library in the Morrin Centre. Comfy chair, wifi, historic setting – what more could I want! I was the only person there besides the librarian, so it was very quiet, apart from the occasional tour group coming through!

In front of the English library that served as my office for the afternoon

My temporary office in the English library

Later in the day I took the ferry across the St. Lawrence River to Lévis, essentially for the views of Québec. The sun was peeking out from behind the clouds and the sky provided a dramatic backdrop. I strolled around Lévis until it started to rain and so I hurried back to the ferry terminal just in time to see a beautiful rainbow appear over the town!

The ferry to Lévis

Houses in Lévis

Houses in Lévis

Rainbow over Lévis

Home sweet home for the next couple of days

Budget: Hostel $25 - Walking tour (tip for guide) $7 - Ferry $7 - Food $20

Day 5: The importance of being stupid together

Spent the day hanging around Québec with the three members of the band who were still left (two departed early in the day). They had to catch a late-night bus so we had plenty of time to kill. After a leisurely breakfast we watched the video of the concert and hung out in the hotel lobby until our most generous hostess, driver, caterer and tour guide Francine came to pick us up and took us on her own personal tour of the city. First stop: Observatoire de la Capitale, with amazing views over the whole city (and, somewhere in it, the venue we played at last night). 

View over Vieux Québec and the Plains of Abraham from l'Observatoire de la Capitale

Second stop on the tour: Ashton for poutine. 

Poutine: tastes better than it looks!

Third stop: Vieux Québec, toured partly by car and partly on foot. With plenty of amusing group photos and other silliness. It’s important to have musicians in a band who not only play well but get along great – or, as Fabio put it, musicians who can enjoy “being stupid together”!

When it got dark we found a bar where a band was playing – a rather unusual band featuring a violinist and a cellist in addition to drums, guitar and bass.We were just in time to catch their second set over a beer. 

Québec by night

After a midnight snack at a nearby diner, I retired to my hostel. I had checked in and left my pack on my assigned bunk in the afternoon, but only at 1:30 am, when everyone else in the room was asleep and it was black dark, did I realise that my bed on the top bunk still needed to be made up! It took quite a bit of fumbling about in the  dark to get it together!

Budget: Hostel $25 – Food+beer $20 

Day 4: Hostsonaten concert at Terra Incognita Festival

11 am soundcheck, quick lunch, then back to the venue in time to hear the opening band, Il Paradiso degli Orchi, also from Italy. In the dressing room, our first and only rehearsal with local violinist Vicky, and then -  time for the show!

Morning soundcheck

Fabio makes an incursion into the ladies' dressing room

Packed venue, amazing fans. It was great to play for an audience who seemed to be truly enjoying the music, and to play with a band from my adopted country, Italy, in the country I grew up in!

Best audience ever!

Click here for concert photos by Pierre Ménard!

And here for an amateur video of the final piece in the concert, Rainsuite!

Day 3: Terra Incognita Festival in Québec

The day opened with a conference/presentation in which Fabio talked about his many music projects and answered fans’ questions. I was there to act as interpreter when necessary, i.e. whenever Fabio couldn’t think of the right word to say what he wanted to say in English – sadly, my French skills are not sufficient to translate into that language!

After the conference three of us headed into Old Québec for lunch and a quick walk around. It was a beautiful sunny day on a long weekend and so the old town was pretty packed. I am looking forward to exploring some more after the long weekend and the festival are over!

The afternoon was spent rehearsing in one of our hotel rooms – unplugged of course. First time I've ever rehearsed with a band on a bed!

Suddenly we realised it was time for the evening show to start at La Chapelle and send a hasty message asking one of the organisers to pick us up and take us there to hear the evening’s bands, Edensong and Glasshammer, both from the USA. We had no time for dinner so we had to settle for a packet of nuts and a chocolate bar from a nearby convenience store. At the venue we met another Italian group, the young guys from Il Paradiso degli Orchi, and the back two rows of the concert hall became the territory of a bunch of jet-lagged and starving Italian musicians!

Now this is more like what I imaged touring with a rock band would be like – practicing sotto voce in hotel rooms, skipping meals, fighting jet lag and hitching a ride back to the hotel in the back of a fan’s van!

Day 2: Dorval – Québec

Took the morning train from Dorval to Québec: a four-hour ride, with free wi-fi, for only $33 Cdn! (Booked an Escape Fare ticket early on). The trip was uneventful – not having been anywhere in Canada except British Columbia for the past twenty-five years or so, I had forgotten just how much of Canada is flat! And why Canadians elect to fly over it. The scenery reminded me more of Pennsylvania than of British Columbia: fields, barns and farmhouses, spindly trees. But to make up for that, ViaRail has free wifi onboard with an entertainment system offering movies and more. On this trip I didn’t use it much, preferring to look out the window and just enjoy the rail experience.

At the very beginning of the trip we rolled into Montréal’s central station and then out again – backwards! After which we switched tracks and proceed on toward Québec (forwards again). Interesting way of doing things!

Rolling into Montréal

We pulled into the Gare du Palais ahead of schedule, just before mid-day. Michel, the organiser of the Terra Icognita festival, picked me up and took me to my hotel, with a couple of stops along the way. He needed to drop by the festival venue and then at the printers’ to pick up festival posters and T-shirts.

La Chapelle - The Terra Incognita festival venue in a former church converted into a theatre

 Another swanky hotel – could get used to this way of travelling! Nice cushy beds and not one, not two, but FOUR pillows each – I’m sharing a room with Marcella, the guitarist, who was due to arrive later in the evening.

On the downside, this hotel is also located out in suburbia, in a semi-industrial area. There are some shops and restaurants around, separated by vast expanses of concrete. I ventured out to purchase a North American charger for my phone and get some lunch, then retired to my swanky hotel room and cushy bed for an afternoon nap. Michel woke me up calling to say he would be back around 7 pm to drop off the members of Glasshammer, a band from Chatanooga, Tennessee that will be playing at the festival Saturday night, and pick me up to go to the first night of the festival, featuring Yes cover band Yessongs. 

Press coverage in one of the local papers

The La Chapelle programme

Glasshammer and I got seats in the back row next to the sound technicians’ booth, because the venue was packed solid with a very lively audience that clapped, cheered and called out after every single song! Some of them had come from as far away as Michigan and even Vancouver. I can’t wait to play for these people on Sunday!

After the concert Michel, Francine and I drove out to the airport to pick up (most of) the rest of the band. We are all here now except for Daniele, the bassist, who arrives tomorrow night!

Day 1: Dorval (Montréal)

Spent the afternoon in non-places: airport – airport hotel room – airport hotel gym & pool – various expanses of concrete, underpasses and overpasses in the vicinity of the airport – suburban train station - strip mall.

Nice hotel. Room with fantastic views of planes taking off and landing, small gym and pool. After getting some exercise and taking a swim to get my circulation going again after a 9-hour flight I decided to suss out the route to the train station so I would know which way to head tomorrow morning. Luckily, because though the station is very close (700 metres, according to Google Maps), and there are sidewalks on the roads between here and there (I had checked this out with Street View before booking the hotel), there are some major construction works going on between the hotel and the station, and it took me some time to figure out how to get around them and over to the appropriate side of the train tracks!

I arrived at the Dorval Via Rail station just in time to see this beauty pull out. 

Hope my train tomorrow is just as snazzy!

While sussing out the route I spotted a Bay in the distance, so I went over to see if there was anything to eat at the mall (my hotel doesn’t have a restaurant, only a refrigerated counter with a few overpriced snacks). After taking a pedestrian underpass below a highway and crossing a parking lot about as wide as the Gobi desert, I came to an IGA. As soon as I got through the door I started feeling a little dizzy, finding myself surrounded by all those long-lost Canadian groceries – plus beer and wine aisles! In this province you can actually buy a drink to go with your meal without having to make a separate trip to the government liquor store! You cannot, however, buy a single bottle of beer: they come in cases of twelve or more. Not having quite enough extra space in my backpack for that, I settled for a veggie wrap, a few oranges, a bagel for breakfast (what else could one have for breakfast in Montréal?) and a Lindt caramel sea salt bar (they had about 20 different kinds of Lindt chocolate bars on special – Lindt chocolate bars always seem to be on special in Canada! But only because they’re so horribly overpriced that nobody would buy them if they weren’t).

Well I seem to have managed to stay awake until it's dark, in spite of the fact that it's now three am where I came from this morning. Now I'd better see if I can succeed equally well in going to sleep and staying asleep until it gets light again!