Quebec

• How I was Hooked - Canada
• The City of Food, Fun & Fashion - Montreal
• Montreal and all that jazz - Montreal
• Welcome to Brollywood - Vancouver
• The 400-year-old birthday girl - Quebec

FORGET WEST IS BEST. In Canada, if you want a feast, go East. That’s precisely what my husband Jonathan and I did.

We wanted to celebrate my 50th birthday on July 3 in style and, since Quebec City was marking its 400th anniversary on the same day, we decided we’d celebrate together.

What could be better? Fireworks, food and festivities à la français, and my mere 50 years seemingly so very few compared to the four centuries of history and culture boasted by this classy Canadian lady?

We kicked off with a day in Montreal, staying at the splendid Fairmont Queen Elizabeth. The hotel is home to the John Lennon and Yoko Ono Suite (Room 1742), where they staged the second of their famous bed-ins in 1969 and recorded Give Peace A Chance.

Each year on December 8, the day John Lennon was murdered in 1980, two dozen roses are left anonymously by the door of the suite.

How they get there remains a mystery. Less of a mystery is the Give Peace A Chance cocktail created for us at the Voyageurs Bar, where we were told: ‘The gin is British for John, the sake is Japanese for Yoko, the grenadine signifies love and the lemon symbolises that sometimes love is bitter.’ We certainly gave it a chance.

The world’s largest log hotel

Next morning, after stocking up with good-value trendy T-shirts at American Eagle and raiding a nearby MAC make-up counter (there’s one in most department stores and their prices are half those in the UK), we drove the 80 miles west to the quaint village of Montebello on the Ottawa River. We were to stay three nights at the Chateau Montebello, the world’s largest log hotel, midway between Ottawa and Montreal.

The resort has played host to heads of State and Hollywood stars. But my husband was on a mission.

He was there for the Land Rover Experience Driving School. And, boy, was it an experience. He tackled every obstacle under the sun, scrambling up rock faces that even cats wouldn’t attempt.

You can do Chateau Montebello at your own pace – sit back and escape, or go all-out on the activities front. It has everything – cycling, tennis, golf, canoeing, fishing, the Plaisance National Park, great food and a fabulous new spa with gorgeous views over the river.

We booked the couple’s suite, Salon la Source, and loved the maple-sugar body scrub – though we wondered whether the bears would go for us that afternoon when we went on safari with a guide in the nearby Kenauk reserve. However, we lived to tell the tale of black bears roaming free in the forest.

Giant open-air museum

We were sad to check out but as soon as we arrived at the Fairmont Tremblant two hours later we knew we were on course for another great stay. Ever the action man, Jonathan went off to do Acrobranche, a tree-to-tree aerial adventure that he just loved, while I took one look at it and trotted off to the spa instead.

The food in Quebec province is something else. We’d sampled some great local produce in the Montebello area – gutsy game, ice cider and wine, cheeses and chocolates stood out, along with restaurants such as Le Cafe du Bistro and La Table de Pierre Delahaye. But in Tremblant we had a meal to dazzle the palate.

Q Restaurant in Hotel Quintessence was a treat after a long day’s hiking in Parc National du Mont Tremblant – forest mushrooms, foie gras terrine with vanilla ice cider jelly, Canadian elk, local wild trout, saute of fresh strawberries and red pepper, wild raspberry souffle and apricot pastries in linden flower tea.

We sat in the window overlooking the lake at sunset and just wanted that meal to go on for ever.

But the week was drawing to a close, the big birthday beckoned and Quebec City had invited the world to ‘come celebrate’.

The city of Quebec is like a giant open-air museum. Everywhere you turn there’s street theatre, artists and music. You can walk all day and never tire of the winding, cobbled streets, the frescoes and French fortifications, the architecture, boutiques and bistros, sidewalk cafes, historical parks and the Old Port area.

There’s also the ever-present mighty St Lawrence River and surrounding mountains. No wonder it’s a Unesco World Heritage Cultural Site.

The celebrations were in full swing when we arrived at the Chateau Frontenac, a castle-like structure towering above old Quebec and claimed to be the most photographed hotel in the world.

Our sojourn was too short

Our first challenge was to find a good viewing spot for a mega-projection, on to enormous grain silos down in the port, of the history of Quebec City. This was the largest outdoor projection ever created and was awesome.

They certainly have vision in this corner of Canada. The Museum of Modern Art is housed in a former prison on the Plains of Abraham and has a fabulous restaurant with a terrace boasting possibly the finest view in the city, overlooking Battlefields Park and the St Lawrence River.

The roof and facade of the Museum of Civilisation had been turned into a living tapestry of flowers and foliage.

It was the work of Franco Dragone, who has produced many of Cirque du Soleil’s extravaganzas and Celine Dion’s Las Vegas shows.

Our sojourn in Quebec was way too short. The food was superb – think French finesse but American portions. The people are friendly and very proud of their beautiful city. And rightly so. It’s one of the great cities of the world. I felt privileged to be there for my 50th, to help this grande dame celebrate her 400th.