Child’s Play in Quebec

Dusky rays of sun slipped through the stone corridors of 17th century Vieux (Old) Montreal as our carriage driver welcomed us in a lilting French accent. Speaking over the hollow clop of horseshoes on cobblestones, he asked what brought a family of four from California to this island city where the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers meet.

My husband, David, and I chose Quebec province because we wanted to share with our children, Robert, who had just turned 13, and Rachel, 11, the excitement of discovering a place whose history, culture and language diverged from our own. We had considered Europe, but for a family of four, a trip to the Continent was out of reach, even with a strong dollar.

From a practical standpoint, our American dollars stretched so far in Canada that we could indulge in five-star candlelight dinners, a separate room for the kids and even an unhurried carriage ride through ancient lanes.

When we told our driver, Jean, that we nearly chose Vancouver, he mused: “Ah, Vancouver. A beautiful city, but without the heart and soul of Montreal.”

At that moment, who was to argue? We pulled the hand-sewn carriage blankets close, warding off the nip of this August evening, and reveled in the feeling of a European vacation in North America.

We arrived late in Montreal, so we spent the night at the comfortable airport Hilton, then negotiated our way the next morning through streets marked only in French to what was described on the Web as “the gorgeous home of Mme. Helene de Grandpre,” the City Chic Bed and Breakfast in the upscale Outremont district.

It was as billed. Our rooms were decorated with antiques, fine fabrics and fresh flowers, pulled together with an impeccable sense of French design. All this elegance cost $108, which included two rooms, one with a queen bed, one with twin beds for the kids, plus a mouthwatering breakfast of cheeses, fresh-squeezed orange juice, rich coffee, eggs and homemade pastries.

The kids relished eating cheeses and croissants with their eggs for breakfast and enjoyed asking Mme. Grandpre about Montreal, her neighborhood and French phrases.

She also served as our on-site tour planner, sending us to Laurier Ouest Street, a hodgepodge of elegant antique shops, designer boutiques and bakeries filled with baguettes that would rival those found in Paris.

We stopped for a wonderful brunch at Eggspectation, 198 Laurier Ouest St., which has somehow avoided the activist sign-and-language “police,” who struggle to preserve the preeminence of French in Quebec. In most places throughout the province, signs and menus are only in French, which is spoken on the streets, in restaurants and in shops.

We devoted much of an afternoon to the Biodome, the geodesic structure constructed for Expo ’67. It has been converted into a lively environmental journey through four ecosystems, complete with the animals, plants and even the climates of the Arctic North (take a sweater), tropical rain forests and Quebec’s own brisk Laurentian Forest and St. Lawrence riverbank environs.

Here you pass through airtight double doorways into four distinct worlds, gulping in the muggy moisture of the rain forest as you watch a scarlet ibis build a nest, then digging into the backpack for sweaters as you watch penguins play. Rachel loved a live bird show in which a biologist displayed (and released, briefly), owls, an eagle, hawks and a falcon, describing their behavior and characteristics in French and, later, in heavily accented English. (“It was cool to see how some of her words kind of sounded and meant what they do in English,” Rachel said later.)

Close by is the Insectarium de Montreal, captivating Robert with its live scorpions and brilliant scarab beetles and Rachel with its exotic butterflies and working honeybees. Some of the critters here are quite dead, but many are alive in all their fluttering, hopping, buzzing glory. The butterfly exhibit, for example, features the real things, hatching from cocoons and landing on real flowers.

That night we headed for the crowded, chaotic but fun Vieux-Port (Old Port) de Montreal, full of talented street performers. One orchestrated the frenetic movements of a piano-playing marionette; another stretched a trapeze wire over the crowd and performed feats you might see in Cirque du Soleil. The restored port district extends several miles along the shore, featuring roller-bladers wending their way along landscaped paths, antique boat races, musical performances and street vendors.

We also sat before the Cathedral of Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Mary, Queen of the World), instantly relevant to our children as the place where native daughter and pop diva Celine Dion was married.

At every turn, Montreal seemed to offer gracious hospitality, style and artfully prepared food, but we wanted to visit the mountains too, so we bid adieu to Mme. de Grandpre and began our gradual ascent into the Laurentians, just an hour north of Montreal by car.

T he Laurentians are home to quaint villages, rustic lake lodges and the posh Mt. Tremblant ski resort, under heavy construction as it bulldozes its way to becoming the new Vail.

We were seeking something less bustling, and we found it at the cozy Far Hills Inn outside the village of Val-Morin. Having booked at a daily rate of $53 per person for two rooms, a full breakfast and gourmet dinner ($212 a night, total), we were unprepared for the pleasures that awaited us.

The 72-room inn is surrounded by 500 acres of woodlands, a private lake and lavish gardens that perfumed the air. In the forests that framed the horizon, the maples were just beginning to redden. Here a spur-of-the-moment paddle-boat race meant strolling to the lake and jumping into a boat. Ditto for tennis, chess on the oversized lawn set, swimming in outdoor or indoor pools. Paddle boats, canoes, rowboats, tennis racquets and the like all came without charge.

The menus at our candlelight meals featured such choices as fresh asparagus soup, salads tossed from the bounty of the inn’s gardens, tender trout and multilayer, rich-beyond-description chocolate torte. When David and I lingered over wine, the children could happily adjourn to play board games near the stone fireplace in the lobby or head to their own room (courtesy, again, of the exchange rate).

We could easily have stayed a full five days at the Far Hills Inn. The rooms were clean although not luxurious--but we spent little time there. Mostly, we read books outside, warmed during the day by pleasant temperatures, and watched butterflies, brushed up on our canoeing skills, hiked the cross-country ski trails and devised our own Freed family tennis game.

One morning David and I awakened early, had a delicious eggs-and-granola breakfast, then traipsed to the lake. We rowed to the center, all alone in the world except for the sound of a loon.

Eventually we pressed on to Mt. Tremblant’s Gray Rocks, a resort featuring two golf courses, tennis courts, riding stables and a private beach and marina, as well as a kids’ program with such draws as trips to nearby water slides, mountain biking and the like.

We were in for another surprise, this one unpleasant. Gray Rocks was jam-packed with stressed-out vacationers. Families converged, it seemed, only at dinner, when tables were crammed elbow to elbow in a stuffy dining room.

I stood in line for an hour just to sign the kids into a water slide outing for which we had reservations. Meanwhile, the stables were overbooked, so it was off to the boat line and then the lake. Picture the 405 Freeway on a Friday afternoon.

The closet-size room the four of us shared was decorated in sickening ‘70s stripes. The beds were lumpy and creaky, the pillows as thick as a piece of white bread. The price: $330 a night. What was to have been the crowning point of our vacation was a disaster.

We checked out after just one night, and I called a reservation service for the Mt. Tremblant region. Within hours we were at Les Jardins de L’Achillee Millefeuille, a memorable bed-and-breakfast outside a village called La Conception.

Much love and skill have gone into this charming retreat, the home of Monique Lortie and Claude Valiquette, where we booked two rooms, one for $51 and one for $57, each with its own bath and including breakfast. Here the surprises come in the form of woolen slippers knitted by Claude’s mother and the whimsical Victorian and pumpkin-themed rooms in a fully restored, solar-heated barn. The kids stayed in the Pumpkin Room, a fairy-tale creation in orange, accented with pumpkin-shaped dried flowers and adorned with paintings of Cinderella scenes.

Outside, flower-sprinkled trails led to Monique’s expansive gardens, where herbs scented the air. For breakfast, served in the garden, Monique presented fresh juices; granola; yogurt; and rich, steaming coffee.

Our hosts directed us to Restaurant l’Escalope, where we had our most spectacular meal: a fresh seafood-salad bar, oysters on the half shell and lobster cooked to perfection that, with wine, came to $60 for the four of us.

On our last night in Quebec we reminisced about French voices and flowers, an uproarious family tennis game, candlelight dinners and the haunting call of a loon on a glassy lake. By choosing Quebec, we experienced a world far different from our own, at a price that allowed us to splurge. The kids ordered lobster and negotiated a French-English dictionary for the first time. We learned a smattering of history and giggled through the Freed family paddle-boat race of the millennium.

Our vacation had been, in a word, magnifique.

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GUIDEBOOK

Taking In Montreal and the Laurentians

Getting there: From LAX, nonstop service to Montreal is available on Air Canada, and connecting service is available on American, US Airways, Continental, Delta and Northwest. Restricted round-trip fares begin at $368.

Where to stay: We stayed at City Chic B&B;, operated by Helene de Grandpre, 64 Nelson, Outremont, Montreal H2V 3Z7, telephone (514) 279-8373, fax (514) 279-5761, Internet https://www.citychic.com. Rates: $54-$90.

For other Montreal B&Bs;, tel. (800) 738-4338 or (514) 738-9410, Internet https://www.info@bbmontreal.com.

In the Laurentians: Far Hills Inn, 3399 Chemin Far Hills, Val-Morin Station, Quebec J0T 2R0, tel. (800) 567-6636, fax (819) 322-1995, Internet https://www.farhillsinn.com/welcome.html. Rates begin $48 per person.

Les Jardins de l’Achillee Millefeuille, 4352 Chemin des Tulipes, La Conception, Quebec J0T 1M0, tel./fax (819) 686-9187. Rates: $51-$57, including breakfast.

Where to eat: In Montreal, we tried Restaurant Ilduomo, 311 St. Paul Est; local tel. 852-5222. Excellent Italian cuisine with a view of Old Montreal.

The Original Fairmount Bagel Bakery, 74 Fairmount St. West; tel. 272-0667. Great bagels.

St. Hubert, various locations throughout Quebec. Look for a jaunty chicken. Fast food but different from the U.S.

Eggspectation, 198 Laurier Ouest St.; tel. 278-6411. Good for breakfast.

In the Laurentians: Restaurant l’Escalope, 597 Rue Ouimet, Saint-Jovite; tel. 425-3354. Reservations recommended.

Cafe Bistro L’Express, 1337 Sapiniere, Val-David; tel. 322-3090. Delicious vegetarian couscous and apple cake.

For more information: Canadian Consulate General, 550 S. Hope St., 9th Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90071-2627; tel. (213) 346-2700, fax (213) 346-2785, Internet https://www.canadatourism.com.