Tuesday, 8 February 2011

Quebec City Winter Carnival

Thanks in part to a kind Christmas gift, A and I headed to Quebec City for a long weekend to check out Carnival, the largest festival of its kind, and now in its 57th year. It involves all manner of wintery activities and entertainment: here is a taster..

The festival site

The popular snow slides

The festival is on the banks of the St Lawrence: partly frozen at this time of year

Of course, Quebec City is a charming place to visit even without the festival, and so we went for a wander through the old town:

Place Royale, and the Notre-Dame-des-Victoires church

Rue du Petit-Champlain

There are many fine snow sculptures

and ice sculptures

A night parade with many crazy floats

and the star of the show: Bonhomme!
Winter sports were well represented - both participation (only one skating fall for the whole weekend), and spectator:
Pond hockey

Dog sledding

Ski joring
That's right - the skier is being dragged along by the horse and rider: they must follow a course, and pick up rings as they go. One of the crazier sports I've seen!

So, a very entertaining, enjoyable weekend. And I didn't even mention all the good food we ate!

2 comments:

  1. it's fun to read your posts and andrea's side by side, after you've been traveling, tony! same scenes, different angles. :)

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  2. Glad to hear the falls are decreasing dramatically--- and ski joring? Yikes!
    Janet

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