Time Travel: The Ice Hotel - Quebec, 2005
A frozen night surrounded by Ice in the Canadian Winter.
By Gray Shealy, Commentary by Erin Washington
TRAVEL JOURNAL: A SHORT PODCAST
For my birthday in February 2005, I decided to celebrate by taking 3 of my graduate school classmates for an adventure to Quebec City for the weekend. First, we luxuriated at the glamorous and warm Le Château Frontenac in the heart of the French Old City. But after, we retreated out of town to the newly opened “Ice Hotel”: a series of public spaces and private rooms carved in the snow and ice. As exciting and unique as it was, it is still to this day the coldest night I have ever spent anywhere (and one of the most expensive). Listen along as I tell the story of that evening, sleeping on a block of ice.
Listen to the story here:
Stay:
Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, Quebec City, QC
Hotel de Glace, Saint-Gabriel-de-Valcartier, QC
Eat:
Le Continental, Quebec City, QC
From top left: Quebec's Old City; Ice Hotel entrance; The 'sauna' area in the Ice Hotel courtyard; The Ice Hotel chapel and lobby; Gray in winter gear; wall sculptures.
From top left: the girls doze in sleeping bags on top of a block of ice; the Ice Hotel's exterior; a window; the "survival" orientation for overnight guests; our room's view from le Chateâu Frontenac over the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City; inside the Ice Hotel.
Photo source: Syllogi
Leaving a travel legacy: I started writing a journal of my travels when I was a teenager. From my first trip overseas to today (where I have travelled to over 100 countries and territories), listen and watch as I open up these writings for the first time in years and re-live the experiences that helped shape my travel legacy. Travel back in time with us in each edition as we reminisce upon a past adventure.
