One thing I enjoy about driving around Europe is the distinct nature of each country's road and sign designs. If I had forgotten which country I woke up in, I could get out on any larger road, and immediately determine which European country I was in.

While European have plenty of standardisation, each country have their own designs for the pictograms on the standardised signs, their own designs on road markings and in particular the typeface. Of course, one significant way you can tell the European countries apart is the language.

O Canada.

And you only get the latter difference when entering Canada from the United States. And only if you drive into Québec. Sure, Canadian signs are metric whereas US signs are not, but there is really little else really telling you are in Canada.

That is not to say Canada is just the United States with a more modern measurement system, no, but its immediate appearance is not that different. It is not until you stop and interact with locals, or go to one of the bigger cities. In particular Ville de Québec.

Château Frontenac in Québec is considered to be the most photographed hotel in the world. So I better help with that statistic.

Québec still has an old European quality to it, while clear hints of its new world location hides at every corner. It is a stunning beautiful city to behold, from a continent whose most impressive sights usually include the impressive nature of the scale of human construction (see New York City, for instance) or the stunning nature. It is no wonder that the United States was the first country to have national parks. [1]

So it was nice to see a town that more clearly displayed its history so impressively. [2]

The Citadel in Québec, overlooking most of the city, that I unfortunately did not get to properly see because of the weather.

It was unfortunate, however, that by the time I had to see the city, the weather turned on me. From a light drizzle to pouring down.

Forcing me to skip an adventure to the Citadel, and rush towards my car, where I immediately made my way towards Montréal.

The dark clouds hanging over Québec.

Notes