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.”

Welcome to Quebec, the only Canadian province whose sole official language is French, only a short hop from the U.S. border, yet culturally worlds way. Indeed, the language and the lifestyle in this Eastern Canadian province are reminiscent of the motherland across the Atlantic. There is an authenticity of experience here that fools travelers into thinking they’re traveling not in Canada but in France itself.

It’s no faux French either. English does not even rank as an official language in Quebec, and though English is spoken with fluency in the big cities, things can get more challenging in the province’s hinterlands. A waiter in the village of La Bai apparently must have owned a French-English dictionary too heavy for him to heft, because each time we asked the English equivalent of a menu item, he trotted off to the kitchen and returned with the translation. The fact that he did so gladly was a clear indication that we were not in France.

Snobbery (that unfortunate French attribute) is conspicuously absent in Quebec; friendly people and genuine hospitality are not. Even locals who struggle with English are happy to give directions and advice.

Extending the spirit of generosity to their bottom lines, many Montreal restaurants even invite patrons to “apportez votre vin,” or “bring your own bottle of wine,” making the cost of meals with wine ridiculously inexpensive when compared to what you would pay for similar meals with wine elsewhere.

Nearly 400 years after the French explorer Champlain sailed along the St. Lawrence River to pitch camp at what would become Quebec City, French Canadians still hold France in high esteem. Today, 82 percent of the population speaks French in this North American crossroads between America and Europe.

Cruise “turn arounds” provide a great opportunity to spend time in the area before or after your cruise. Combine Montreal with a three-hour train journey to or from Quebec City, then rent a car to drive to Saguenay.

Seldom will U.S. travelers have the opportunity of being so close to a place that seems so far. It’s like having France in the backyard.

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

You can appreciate this fact  sailing in on a ship, or, as I saw it, on a helicopter excursion. The daring adventure takes you up close  to — and high over — some of the world’s most dramatic landscapes.

There’s also quite a lot to appreciate on the ground in Saguenay, and it begins in the new cruise terminal, where there are boutiques and local craftsmen offering quality merchandise, not the kind of touristy trinkets you’d normally find in destinations frequented by tourists.

Saguenay’s natural beauty is spectacular, and so is its culture. I enjoyed visits to so-called Economy Museums.

One is the Savonnerie Olivier, which offers an exceptionally well-done and humorous presentation about soap making. I even bought a few bars of the soap, made from pure olive oil.

I also enjoyed an afternoon at Le Chevrier du Nord, a family farm that breeds angora goats.

At the Musee de Fjord, I learned a lot about the history of this region and about its natural habitat. I left Saguenay wanting to return.

Saguenay is an Avid Cruiser Recommended Destination on Saint Lawrence Cruise Itineraries.

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.

Our guide Ingrid, who could express herself in English, had trouble pronouncing English words and phrases, such as ‘rural roads.’ The ‘r’s’ simply would not loosen themselves from her lips. Most of Saguenay’s tourists, Ingrid told me, come from France or Belgium, so there are plenty of opportunities to speak French but few opportunities to practice English.

The front desk receptionist at L’ Auberge des 21 had no trouble with English, however, and she waxed poetic about how great it was to live in this remote region of the world. Life is slower here, she said, and much of the emphasis is on nature and fine living.

‘We know how to breathe,’ she said, alluding to the fact that many of her guests came from the busy and breathless pace of the big cities. ‘It’s nature by day,’ she said, ‘and romance by night.’ Indeed, after a day of sailing, we dined exquisitely over a bottle of wine while looking out on the beautiful fjord.

If you seek cultural diversions, visit the Musee du Fjord, or Museum of the Fjords; Verrerie d’Art Touverre, a glass-art workshop; and Olivier Soapery, a living economuseum emphasizing the traditional craft of soap-making in the early 19th century. The latter two are called Economy Museums.

The highlight of our trip, however, was a morning sailing in Saguenay fjord. On many sailing excursions, whales, especially Beluga whales, are often seen, but we saw none on our sailing. Still, it was a wonderful day out on the fjord.

To get to La Baie, we drove through the interior, but to return to Quebec City, we charted a route along the St. Lawrence River, through Charlevoix, where we stopped in Baie-Saint-Paul. The entire town had turned out for a Tour de France style bike race. The streets were closed. Spectators sipped glasses of wine and cheered the riders. Had we not known better, we could have sworn we were in France. But that’s just the way our whole trip had been. It was hard to believe that we were just north of the U.S. border. Never had a place so near home felt so far away.

While many travelers embark on Canada/New England cruises for the blazing fall foliage, few water-bound travelers venture all the way down the St. Lawrence Seaway to end their cruises in Quebec (cruises, of course, also start in Quebec). From Boston, our cruise called on Bar Harbor, Maine; Halifax and Sydney, Nova Scotia; Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island; Saguenay Fjord; and Quebec City before ending in Montreal. Of those ports, I had been only to Halifax, which I loved.

A few years ago, I stepped into the cruise terminal in Halifax and sneezed, causing no fewer than five Nova Scotians to look up and reply, ‘Bless you.’ My feet had been planted only a few minutes on Canadian soil, and yet it appeared what the Scottish hairdresser working for Princess Cruises told me just might be true — that the people in Halifax were the nicest people she had ever met in a port. Step off the ship, and people politely offer you directions, maps and literature about the area — without trying to sell you anything at all.

But even as an avid cruiser, I had not given Quebec a lot of thought until The Avid Cruiser’s Summer 2005 issue, when Holland America Line Captain Jonathan Mercer chose Quebec City as his favorite port to sail into. It took me going there to see why Captain Mercer made his choice.

Known as the ‘most European city in North America,’ Quebec City is perhaps the most romantic city in North America too. Pitch camp at the legendary Le Chateau Frontenac, dine on fine cuisine at sidewalk cafes over a bottle of French wine, step into a horse-drawn carriage and listen to the clack of hooves on narrow cobblestone streets. The language, the lifestyle, the cuisine — nothing suggested we were just a few hours from the U.S. border.

Montreal was equally enchanting. The two cities, in fact, rank among the best I have ever visited. I liked them so much that I found myself looking for apartments to rent, a hazard of my profession.

I loved Saguenay too. I found it charming and relaxing and other-worldly. Life there seemed to revolve around the fjord and the fresh breezes off the water. As noted in one of the preceding stories, a hotel receptionist in La Baie, said of the Saguenay lifestyle, ‘We know how to breathe.’ That’s an important attribute that residents in few other places in the world can claim.

If you’ve read the stories preceding this one, it should be apparent that I also loved Quebec because it has many of the positive aspects of being in France — and none of the negative ones.

There’s no jetlag, as Quebec is only a short flight from most U.S. gateways. And although the Canadian dollar was gaining strength against the U.S. dollar when I was there and when this article went to press, Quebec is still a bargain when compared to most of Continental Europe. The fact that you can bring your own bottle of wine to many restaurants also makes Quebec even more of a bargain.

While my intention is not to bash France, comparisons are necessary with two places that are so much alike — and so very different. Quebec has none of the snobbery that many tourists attribute to France, deserved or not. Quebecers, in fact, are some of the friendliest and most hospitable people I’ve ever met.

If you’re ending or beginning a cruise in Quebec, you owe it to yourself to add a week (two nights in Montreal, three nights in Quebec City, and two nights in Saguenay). And if not, then it’s time to begin planning. Don’t do what I did and put off visiting Quebec. If you do, you’ll want to kick yourself for waiting so long.