Tuesday, October 2, 2012

World’s Happiest Countries – 24 Hours in Quebec City

Today, I stumbled across an article detailing the world’s happiest countries.  When I asked Frank what he thought made the list, he named them all, with the exception of Canada (which is number five).

Now, I'm planning to go to Amsterdam in December, but the only country I’ve been to on the list so far is Canada.  And I can tell you, people there are pretty happy.  The picture in the article is from Québec City, where most of the people only speak French.

 
Québec City was just one of the locations in this great country north of the United States that I visited with my three friends back on a road trip in 2006.  We went in August, when the city was bustling with people and the weather was beautiful.

 
The best thing to do in Québec City is just walk around.  And no matter where you walk, you can almost always see Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac.  This is a beautiful hotel and one of the main landmarks of Canada. 

If you are at Epcot, you'll see a scaled down version of Le
Chateau Frontenac in the World Showcase.

Québec City is divided into two parts: Upper Town and Lower Town.

Here I am in Upper Town, taking a picture of Lower Town

If you want to get between the two quickly, you can take the Funiculaire.

In case you didn't know, the Funiculaire is a weird elevator thing
that goes up tracks on the side of a slope.
 
If you are really lucky, while walking around, you can see the changing of the guards.


But, this is an economical blog, so here’s my biggest tip on how to be economical in Québec City: stay in a VW bus… preferably in a parking lot.

This is my best friend, Betty, who may not be thrilled about me
putting up this picture.  Shhh... she's in Spain right now and
won't likely see this for awhile.
 
The first night we stayed at a camp ground, but it was far away from the city center, so the second night we just pulled up to a parking lot (it was a paid parking lot in our defense!) and changed into our jammies.  The parking lot was outside of a restaurant, so we washed out faces there.  Ghetto?  Yes.  And economical.

Total Cost: About $10 for parking.  We also took a guided tour of the city which was about $30.  We probably ate too, so maybe about $30 for that.  That’s $70 for a little more than 24 hours in Québec City.

Best Deal:  Spending the night in a parking lot.  This was the first of many times we did this on the trip!

 

I think Canada is definitely one of the happiest countries! Where do you think is the happiest place?

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