One
of my favorite stops in Canada was at the Royal Canadian Mounted Police training
center and museum on the way to Montreal.
I met some new RCMP recruits that were out practicing for the Musical
Ride, a yearly demonstration on horseback.
They train twice a day for about three hours!
The city of Montreal is in the province of Quebec. It rained most of the time I was here, but I was still able to visit some of the really beautiful old buildings, including the Notre Dame Basilica. The pipe organ has 7,000 pipes!
No
visit to the province of Quebec would be complete without stopping into a Cabane
a Sucre, or Sugar Shack, to see how they make maple syrup. They used to drill holes in the maple trees
and attach a bucket to catch the sap, but today they use a system of plastic
tubes to collect it. Then the sap has to
be boiled down to concentrate the sugar into syrup. I was lucky enough to sample maple taffy, made
by pouring hot syrup over shaved ice, YUM!
The
final stop of my trip was to Quebec City, founded in the year 1608 by French
Explorer Samuel de Champlain. The oldest
parts of this city are still paved with cobblestones and surrounded by a wall! You won’t have any trouble finding things to
do here, either. Acrobats and musicians perform
in the streets and city parks to entertain tourists and locals alike. There are tiny shops with goods made by local
artisans, and many unique restaurants. If you ever find yourself venturing north to Canada, be sure to stay a while in Quebec City!
