Winter Carnivale in Quebec and The Ice Hotel

Leaving the city at midday last Friday, we hit the highway for a 810k drive to Quebec city. Last time we did this I swore we'd fly next time...but you know how it is....the boyfriend didn't like the idea of having Mcgregor under the seat in the dreaded doggie bag for the one hour trip so here we are! Still, if Pip was keen on driving the distance, Mac and I were happy to keep him company!

I'd baked till nearly midnight thursday night, producing two cakes, one banana and one plum kuchen and two huge lasagnes to take up with us, they were stowed in the back with the doggie.

We whiled away the 5 hours to Montreal learning Italian. I had my laptop on my knee with our 'Learn Italian in 10 minutes a day' CD whirring around. We uno, due, tre and quatro'd our way across the snowless miles of Ontario. It wasnt until we crossed the border into Quebec that the snow accumulation became significant. We pass pretty farms, with great arching barns and tall silos all the way. Livestock are rare, and further north the barns turn into great silver double storied chicken factories. (We buy organic eggs from chickens fed on the stuff that makes their yolks orange like the ones back home)

This countryside is flat...flat...flat....grain growing land. Quebec is just a big farm really and it produces some yummy stuff especially cheese. We hoped to sample a few of those delights this weekend.

Finally we crossed the St Lawrence and drove into old Quebec along the Boulevard Champlain which winds along the river, below the cliffs, to the old port. Darkness had fallen hours before and right on cue a great fireworks display erupted over the high plains of Abraham above the cliffs to herald our arrival in town!

We wound through the now familiar narrrow cobbled streets to our friend Jills house on Rue St Louis in the walled town. Jill, a Commander in the Canadian Navy, lives with her two sons in a fifteen room stone house, built in the early 1800's by the english. It has an aristocratic history and once sported gorgeous gardens, but these days is owned by the Government for the use of employees of the Forces.

Saturday morning and we're off on a trek to the Winter Carnivale to see the ice sculptures and Ice Palace. $12 buys a three week pass to the event and we wander the frozen streets and sideshows. Pip and I go head to head in the kids tent playing tennis on a wii....I think I won..but maybe not!... (He says not)! (His story is that he thrashed me...!) We also played some sort of wii dancing game which was great fun and just showed how rhymically challenged I really am. I was beaten soundly! Ian, Jills youngest son (green jacket at left) played a game of human fuze ball. Hilarious. People strapped themselves to sliding poles and moved just like a fuze ball table. To his delight, Ian kicked the winning goal.

Old fashioned horsedrawn sleighs drifted across the snow, making the snow covered Plains of Abraham look like they must of 200 years ago. Little Mac, clad in his red winter coat got the shakes as we walked around town on the way to the Soap Box derby. His dear dad picked him up and carried him home to get warm in Jills parlour.

Cariboo is the drink of the festival. A hot concoction of red wine and whisky dished up in funky ice glasses served from an ice bar by cute boys and girls in sub zero gear. We tried some later that night on our way home from the Auberge St Antoine, at an ice bar on Rue St Louis. We'd been at drinks in the hotel earlier to meet the champion ladies Ice Canoe team sponsored by the Hotel.

Somehow we ended up settled into the Artifact bar at the Auberge, with Evan and a new group of friends, sampling gorgeous nibbles, oysters and scallops washed down by lashings of lovely wine! We met a lovely couple from Boston, he was Prof of Economics at MIT (very handsome) and she a stay at home Mum. Another very beautiful young couple, a financier and advertising gal, were from Toronto and the last couple lived in Ottawa, he was Welsh and she worked for the Government. Two of these couples were indulging in romantic weekends at the Ice Hotel, something we'd toyed with doing but put in the too hard basket.

Sunday we watched Evan and his Bonjour Quebec team in the Ice Canoe Race with Muffy (in the shiny black coat), Dominique (turquoise pants), Annabelle and Nic Price. The girls in the Auberge St Antoine team lead the womens section out across the ice and into the St Laurent river but sadly could only manage 4th after the grueling  test against ice, swift current and blowing snow  Evans team started from the back of the bunch and finished a creditable 6th. There were some hairy moments when boats, rowed by four rowers and a captain steering with a paddle, clashed together, trapped in the ice, as sharp pick ended oars crashed together and carbon fibre hulls clattered against the river iceflows, the rowers desperately trying to get into clear water and away from their opponents. The Elite mens race was won by the crack Chateau Frontenac team who'd won for years on end. (The rowers all wear Canterbury rugby boots modified with long sharpened bolt like sprigs so they can run on the ice.)

After a few warming mulled wines back at the Auberge, Pip and I joined Jill and her boys for Sunday dinner and played board games until bedtime.

Next day we packed our dusty chevrolet and headed off to the Ice Hotel. I had a preconceived idea of what it would look like. Of course it was completely different. On the outside the shape of the building is very simple, its not until you walk through the deerskin covered doors that the magic starts. Every pillar, wall, chandelier, bed, chair, table and stool is carved from ice. Seats and beds are draped with pelts and skins and clever lighting transforms each room into something super romantic. Cathedral ceilings soar in the public areas, there was even an ice slide in one of the bars.

Its weird walking through a building with snow floors and ice walls, bloody cold actually, even though we're in our boots and down parkas. I baulked at going right inside a little igloo (claustrophobia) but didnt think twice about stretching out on a bearskin rug on an icy bed. Guests arrive in the evening for drinks and nordic spas, are given artic sleeping bags and the ice beds are heaped with pelts and rugs. There are no doors and there are air holes in the ceiling of each room. Some of the larger suits have fireplaces too. The Ice Hotel has a lodge where each guest also has a room to flee to if the cold gets too much in the night!

The chapel took my breath away, it was serene and incredibly beautiful, like a fairytale dream place!

We had to trek back into Quebec as the boyfriend had left his wallet warming above Jill's radiator at Rue St Louis. The trip, though long, seems to slip by now we have become familiar with it again. Just a short 9 hours later we drove into our parking lot at Isabella Street after smooth trip on the dead straight road, wee Mac snoozing in his tartan bed in the backseat.

Another weekend behind us and good memories to sleep on.