Châteaux, whales and autumn colours on a spectacular cruise from New England to Canada
For 6pm in October, in eastern Canada, it wasn’t cold, but a little too chilly perhaps for champagne and caviar on our balcony. We asked the butler to set up the tray inside.
What were we celebrating? The end of a perfect day and the prospect of dinner followed by another great show to round off the evening. Besides, the arrival almost every evening of two glasses of fizz and caviar doesn’t feel extravagant when it’s included in the cost of the cruise.
Our 10-day itinerary was a textbook blend of pace and content. Ports of call, book-ended by Boston and Montréal, ranged from charming Bar Harbor on Maine’s scenic shoreline to Halifax, Charlottetown and Quebec City in Canada, as well as three lesser-known fishing ports along the St Lawrence River.
On Halifax waterfront I visited the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic, which tells the stories of the city’s role in the Titanic disaster and of the 1917 Halifax Explosion. In Charlottetown, my excursion included watching a local chef prepare and cook freshly caught shellfish, then eating the finished feast.
Aboard Quest, a mid-sized 458-passenger ship, every meal was a gourmet experience. Among my best choices were sesame-coated yellow fin tuna steak, Seabourn’s signature osso bucco and a salted caramel bombe with strawberries.
My favourite place to breakfast was outside on The Colonnade terrace. One morning was fairly cool, as I casually mentioned to my sister; a waiter promptly brought me a warm rug.
I was glad I hadn’t gone inside when, moments later, two whale spouts appeared in our wake. Up to 13 species, including beluga, minke, humpback and blue, are found in the St Lawrence, one of the world’s largest and deepest estuaries. These two left before we could work out which they were.
Seabourn delivers a broad range of excursions in all ports of call, but also offers a private car and driver option for tours tailored to your interests, which quite a few passengers chose. We preferred to mix and match – guiding ourselves through cities and smaller ports and booking excursions for the more out-of-reach places.
From our first port along the St Lawrence, Gaspé, we took a scenic 60-mile drive to see a famous rock. “You won’t regret it,” said a pair of Canadians we met at dinner. Whether you consider it an enormous offshore outcrop or a tiny island, there’s no mistaking the vast hole, yawning like a needle’s eye, that gives this landmark its name: Percé (pierced).
On our guide’s recommendation, we enjoyed a superb fish lunch at nearby La Maison du Pêcheur. Percé was one of many amazing sights, man-made and natural.
It was the time of year for pumpkins – they were heaped beside roads on the picturesque Île d’Orléans, an island patchworked with villages, farms and vineyards. Now popular with artists, Île d’Orléans, dubbed the “Cradle of New France”, has Canada’s oldest rural church, and its stone houses ooze history.
On the same tour from Quebec City we visited Montmorency Falls, higher by 99ft than Niagara. In Baie-Comeau, in the Cote-Nord region of Quebec province, we immersed ourselves in ice at the Glacier Exploration Station. The interactive experience takes you to the bottom of a two-and-a-half-mile-thick glacier and is a great way to learn more about climate change.
Just as stimulating was the La Fabuleuse cultural show in Saguenay. Charting the region’s history, it featured not only actors, but animals and startling special effects, including rain, snow, cannon shots and fireworks.
But best of all was Quebec City. It appears around a sharp bend in the river – an approach memorable for the first sight of Château Frontenac, with its steeply pitched copper roof and eerie turrets. We got a closer look at this and the nearby citadel on a walking tour and horse-and-carriage ride through the Upper Town, the oldest part of which is wrapped in miles of walls.
A funicular connects the Lower Town. In Place-Royale, the birthplace of Quebec, cobbled streets and flower-decked stone houses serve as a reminder that the first colonists were French. Impressive wall murals depict the life of early settlers.
Even with so much to see, there was no forgetting that October’s autumn colours were the cruise’s main attraction. We soaked up the stunning reds and golds on a drive through Maine’s Acadia National Park; revelled in their blanketing of Prince Edward Island and Île d’Orléans and admired their vibrancy in parks and gardens. We also enjoyed many glimpses of them ashore as we sailed – one more highlight to celebrate as we raised our pre-dinner drinks.
A 10-night New England & Canadian Maritimes cruise from Boston to Montreal, departing October 14, 2019, costs from £4,999pp, excluding flights (0843 373 2000; seabourn.com).
