Cruising The Saint Lawrence

Holland America Line’s Maasdam begins cruising to and from Quebec on May 8 (from Fort Lauderdale to Quebec City). She’ll do a series of Canada/New England cruises through the early summer before being joined by Eurodam in August and September. Quebec City, Montreal and Saguenay are extremely charming destinations that you’ll appreciate no matter if you’re staying only for a few hours or a few days, pre- or post-cruise. The stories that follow (today and throughout this month) are designed to enhance your time in Quebec.

A bartender at Quebec City’s fashionable L’EChaude restaurant expresses mock indignation when a visitor asks how Quebec’s capital compares with the province’s largest city, Montreal. “They are not truly French,” the bartender says, conveniently overlooking the fact that as a Canadian, neither is he. “In Montreal, people speak French 50, maybe 55, percent of the time.” He steps back from the bar and folds his arms to proclaim, “Here, we speak French 95 percent of the time.”

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Saguenay is not only the only fjord in North America but also one of the world’s longest fjords.

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It’s a 2.5-hour drive from Quebec City to the Saguenay region. We pointed our car toward La Baie, where we checked in to L’ Auberge des 21. Located on the shore of the Saguenay Fjord, the warm family inn also features fine regional (read: French) cuisine at a shockingly good restaurant for such a small inn.

The fact that the food was so good, however, should have come as no surprise. Saguenay may just be the most French of all the areas we visited during a one-week post-cruise vacation. Here, French is by far the predominant language.

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