| THE COOLEST PLACE IN NORTH AMERICA: |
| It is unique. Over the last four years more than 200,000
day visitors have come to wonder at the only ice hotel in North America -- and 10,000 guests have checked in for the night -- and most have made it though till dawn. They've admired the beautiful ice sculptures, hung around the Absolut Bar, and more briefly checked out the ice cinema and ice chapel. And they've even got married in the hotel without any groom getting cold feet; 16 marriages were planned in 2004. |
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| For a different kind of cold feet the immediate neighborhood
offers activities like dog sledding, snowmobiling, snowshoeing and
cross-country skiing. Then, of course, 45 minutes east lies the walled
city, Vieux-Quebec -- like Venice, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Indeed
Travel+Leisure readers have declared Quebec the 4th best destination
in North America. (418-641-6654 extension 5423 www.letacanada.com)
Visitors who come warmly dressed for the annual Winter Carnival
at the end of January find a city with its hair down: from indoor
concerts to a dogsled and sleigh race and soapbox derby. Visitors
can also engage in snow carving, snow rafting, ice fishing and trampoline
bouncing. |
     
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| But at all times a walk around the old city reveals unforgettable
streets and buildings going back to the seventeenth century. The Chateau
Frontenac Hotel, the city's symbol, towers like a signpost above the
old town as if showing the way to Place Royale, the first permanent
French settlement in North America. The trompe l'oeil mural there
leads to the shops of the Rue du Petit-Champlain in one direction
and, in the other, the world-class Museum of Civilization. |
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| Nearby sits little Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, built in
1688, the oldest stone church in North America and above it, in the
new city, the magnificent Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica-Cathedral
whose glory shows the influence of the church in this, our most foreign neighbor. |
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