So, they day after all the winter activity madness, we took the time to have a look around Québec City. SUCH a beautiful little town!!! And about as "European" as it gets over here... meaning quite a lot of old little houses and alleys etc.
There's the Cathedral Notre Dame - very nice inside, and has a very interesting history: it got burned down very shortly after every time they finished working on it... 3 or 4 times, if i remember correctly. And I used what's left of my pathetic French skills to ask someone a question - and they actually understood what I was saying! I didn't see that coming, but it felt good :)
After walking all around Old Québec (upper and lower city), and having lunch at a tiny place where one of the hosts at the door was from the Elsass (and, of course, started speaking German immediately), we went down to the old harbour and took some nice group pictures in the snow (with Chateau Frontenac in the background, of course). Down at the harbourfront we met an old man who told us all kinds of interesting things about Québec: such as that at Québec City is where the St. Lawrence River is the narrowest, which is why it was the perfect place to defend your settlement - against the British, for example. And you could make everyone who wanted to pass with goods pay taxes :) Or, that, even some 200km away from the ocean, you can see the tides when you look at the St. Lawrence river, because whenever there's high tide the ice floes actually flow UP the river, not down with the current!
Up on the promenade there's an ice slide, so Anja and I got one of those old wooden sleds and went down - sooo much fun!! we were the fastest at first, but then kind of slow in the end, and we didn't make it as far as the 2 men next to us... we blame it on our lack of weight, hihi.
To finish of a really nice day, we took the ferry to the other side of the St. Lawrence, to get a nice view of Québec at night - BEAUTIFUL! Everything is lit up, and the chateau and the citadel and the big walls make it look like a fortress. And the ferry ride itself was memorable, since the river was frozen over, so the ferry had to make its way through the ice and push aside the ice floes. If anyon of you has seen the movie "Titanic" and remembers the creaking and moaning sound the boat made when it brushed up against the iceberg - that's the noise the ferry made from time to time. Creepy.
Okay, pictures:

The Chateau Frontenac - it is a hotel now, and also the town's landmark.

Anja, myself and our map of the city - where to go next?

One of the streets in lower Québec. So adorable!! ... and so full of snow!

The city's defense - way back when. Up on the city walls (Upper Québec).

The ice slide!! Freshly made for us... only minutes before we went on they poured more water down the tracks.

Two girls and a wooden sled - here we go!!

Québec City at night (from the other side of St. Lawrence river). The big building to the right is Chateau Frontenac, the Citadel is on the very left. The very bright stretch in the middle are the city walls.

Our ferry is making its way through the ice...