If you come to Victoria, the thing to do is to have tea at the Empress Hotel. In Quebec City it seems the thing to do is to stay at the Frontenac. Everyone knows this towering, landmark hotel.
It is a grand looking place and I had to experience it!
Views of the Frontenac, above, below, beside
The lobby
A lobby window
Our room was on the 5th floor if I remember correctly, with two windows overlooking the St. Lawrence River. Although the hotel is fairly old, the room had been nicely updated.
There were some quirks though, such as: no light bulb in a bedside lamp and no table on one side, the toilet roll on a far wall and the extendable mirror in the bathroom positioned so that the extension was useless. Paint peeling on the window sill... From the overpriced bottled water and overpriced breakfasts to the often-missing-in-action doormen who didn't acknowledge our existence, much less open a door, we felt that we could do better for the high price we were paying. I kept thinking that we could find similar things at a Motel 6.
While all the former Canadian Pacific / now Fairmont hotels I know of have a stately, old-world charm, it is my impression that they also have lackluster service. Before we left home I had thought that we might not stay at the Frontenac for all of our five nights in the city. Once there, I think we knew on the first night that we would look for another hotel, but we decided to stay for two nights for convenience as Glenn's sister from New Jersey was arriving at the Frontenac on our second night.
I always like to see bath robes in a hotel room
Too bad there weren't cookies at the front desk :-)
Too bad there weren't cookies at the front desk :-)
Below: view from our suite. The statue of Samuel de Champlain is in bottom left. Stripe-roofed building is at the top of the funicular. Back left, I believe, are some of the 81 grain silos that provide a backdrop for a 40 minute video called the Image Mill about the city's 400 year history. Back right: the St. Lawrence River.
Oh, for the good old days when buildings had windows that would open wide enough to photograph from. Most photos from here had a lot of reflections showing.