Photoeaux Blogging: Quebec City

Never trust a French-Canadian hotelier who says “We have high-speed Internet. I learned this last week in Quebec City and later in downtown Montreal. But after walking dozens of miles through Quebec’s quaint, charming and extremely steep and hilly architecture, quaint 1990-era bandwidth speeds almost seemed right. After returning to the States and my own wonderfully well-Internetted home last night, I emptied the souvenirs from my luggage and photos from my camera’s memory card, including some from Quebec City.

Many beautiful statues line the streets of Vieux Quebec, and at first glance I thought this guy to be one of them:



But no. He was a street performer who’d covered himself in copper gilding before playing the pan flute on one street corner. He didn’t acknowledge me or any of the other people who dropped Canadian one- and two-dollar coins in the begging can he had before him.

Bishop Batman blessing the city:


A trompe d’oeil street mural, viewed from the next street over (four or five stories taller on the hillside):



The same mural from street level:



Detail of me just below the guitar player. I’d originally planned to strike a pose to blend holistically with the greater mural, but a high hillside wind scotched that plan when it started blowing my hair into my face.



Extremely expensive French-Canadian high-fashion boutiques lined many of the old city’s cobblestone streets, including some with names you'd never find in respectable upscale English-speaking neighborhoods:



Every English speaker took at least one picture of that window. It is the law.