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Well it was a sleepless night in the Hotel Delta last night. Trevor had rather over exerted himself down in the swimming pool yesterday (he was racing Jonathan in the pool) and he has managed to strain the muscle in the top of his arm from his thrashing front crawl. No amount of deep heat or painkillers seemed to be relieving it so thats been lots of ooh's and aah's in the room all night and throughout the day.

So today was out last day in Ontario and Ottawa and we had chores to do before heading off to the train station for Québec City.

We headed off to Starbucks, it's become our morning ritual partly because there always seems to be one just around the corner from whatever hotel you are staying in and partly because we both need a proper coffee!

Caffeine fix sorted we headed off to Chinatown with our dirty washing. Now the laundromat really was an old Chinese Laundry, based in Chinatown this place had really seen better days and the whole experience was not helped by the constant buzz of a fly and the squeak of a dusty wall fan.....this place needed more that Cillit Bang to bring it back into shape but the machines worked and we watched them go round for about an hour and a half before heading back to the hotel to repack and check out.

We left the bags in left luggage and headed off back towards Bytown Market for some lunch. As out train was leaving at 16:10 and not due into Québec City until 21:35 we knew that we would not be getting a decent meal tonight so lunch needed to be something worth while.

We settled on Mexican both having the biggest fattest Burritos we had ever seen before making a very slow walk back to the hotel taking one last glance up at Parliament Hill and the now all but gone stage from Canada Day celebrations.

Ottawa really is a beautiful city and that beauty really does come from the buildings and its history very much how I am sure many foreign tourists see London in the UK. `There is no reason for us to come back here but if it made sense we would have no hesitation at all unlike perhaps somewhere like Edmonton.

Bizarrely the train station is not in the centre of town so we had to get a taxi for the twenty minute journey out to it and when we got there we were also very surprised. Ottawa train station does not have the raft of platforms like english stations or the huge LED boards informing you off all the pending departures and stops. The station only seemed to have two platforms and the signs were all hand hung.

We checked our luggage in (its a bit like going to an airport as they take al the large pieces off you) and waited for boarding. Now the Canada rail website had told us that we needed to be at the station an hour before the train left but when we got there we must have been one of the very few that had done this and as the departure time drew ever closer slowly the station filled up a bit.

The train route itself was also a little frustrating as we have to go through Montréal to then come back on ourselves after we have visited Québec but needs must. You need to remember here that we have paid about £40 each for a five and a half hour train journey, now you would never get that in England!

Boarding the train was a complete surprise, the economy carriages are excellent, really comfortable reclining seats with loads of leg room. We had plugs that you could use for all your electronic gadgetry along the way and free wifi to use the internet all the way to Québec, fantastic!

To be honest the views from the train window throughout the journey were far from inspirational. Once we left Ottawa we went back into the farm belt and just passed field and filed of corn and maize crops. It waas only when we really got to the outskirts of Montreal that we saw signs of life but once again as we left the city suburbs there was not that much of note to tell you about here.

Being that there was no buffet car on the train (our only criticism) we had to make do from the snack car that the ticket lady came down the aisle with so it was far from a healthy dinner today. What we did notice though was that our fellow passengers on the whole were no longer speaking English.

We were now firmly in the French side of Canada and as you would expect French was now all we could really hear.

It had been another swelteringly humid day in Ottawa but now as we headed towards the outskirts of Québec City the heavens opened and it looked like we were heading right into the middle of a downpour.

The Hotel Clarendon was a lot closer to the train station than we had expected so in no time at all we were back in what seemed like the back streets of Paris, somewhere up behind the sacré coeur.

The hotel is in the old walled city district full of cobbled streets and pavement bars and restaurants. We dumped the bags and after sitting on the train for the afternoon and evening we were desperate to stretch our legs and at least get some bearings.

We made it down to a viewing platform and promenade over looking the river before we had to give in to the rain. Having both walked out in T-Shirts because it is so humid here at the moment we were slowly getting past the point of getting wet so back to the hotel it was.

What we did see through the dimpled street light and the reflections in the puddles of the cobblestone roads looked stunning and like nothing else that we have experienced whilst being here in Canada.

Tomorrow as they say will be the proof in the pudding but something tells me that we are really going to enjoy our time in Québec City.

Bonne Nuit !

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