[sitar plays in bright rhythm] (Rudy Maxa) I'm wandering through a festival whose only goal is to make you laugh.

And it's doing the trick.

But that's no surprise.

This former outpost in the wilderness, a place both rugged and sophisticated, down home and chic is above all fun-loving.

Want a taste of Europe in North America?

Look no further than Canada's Montreal and Quebec City.

♪ ♪ (woman) Funding for "Rudy Maxa's World" is provided by the following... (woman) Orbitz salutes the neverending spirit of adventure and as a proud sponsor of "Rudy Maxa's World" Orbitz offers comprehensive information on the world's great destinations.

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Take vacation back!

[Korean janggu drums play in bright rhythm] (man) Korea, be one with earth and sky.

(woman) And by Delta, serving hundreds of destinations worldwide.

Information to plan your next trip available at delta.com.

[guitar, drums, and bass play in bright rhythm] (Rudy) They bewilder me, these 2 charming cities in Quebec Province.

One moment I feel like I'm in New England, the next in France.

There's brie and pâté and little jewel box patisseries, and "s'il vous plait" and "merci," but there are also bagels and maple syrup, hockey and delis and boccie ball.

Here's a modern skyscraper, there's a 17th-century stone nunnery.

There's Chinatown, a mini Notre Dame and Chien Chaud, but it all hangs together this wonderful mixture of culture and tradition.

It had to really, because the people who forged these towns 400 years ago, braved frigid winters, wars and famine, and they learned to hang tough and hang together.

The result--2 of the most unique and appealing cities in the world.

Quebec Province is a little island of France in North America.

The lilting language, the cuisine, the European sensibility, all make you feel a continent away.

The larger of the 2 cities, Montreal, has a population about 4 million in the metropolitan area, and it's the second largest French speaking city in the world.

It's cosmopolitan, dynamic, artistic and diverse.

Montreal is named for Mount Royal, the wooded mountain in the center of the island.

Less than 50 miles from the U.S. border, Montreal is located on an island in the St. Lawrence River.

Montreal's districts include Old Montreal, the Village, the Plateau, Mile End, and Petite Italie, or Little Italy.

A city on an island with a church called Notre Dame-- sound familiar?

It's a kind of city you want to walk or bike around just to seep up the atmosphere.

With French ringing in the streets and cafes, little European-style bistros and shops, buildings older than anywhere in Eastern North America, and a riot of restaurants and gourmet food shops, this is the ultimate livable city.

There's plenty of art, culture, and open space.

And there's an attitude here, part European and part pioneer, that somehow results in an utterly infectious gusto and joie de vivre.

Everywhere you turn in Old Montreal, it's old, old, old.

And some of the reason this city has carefully held on to its heritage more than anywhere else in North America, is the French sensibility for preservation.

In the Place Royale, fur-trading fairs were held in the early 1600s.

This street, the Rue Saint-Paul, was first paved with cobblestones in 1672.

It's one of the oldest streets in North America.

Most visitors to Montreal come here first to Old Town and the temptation is to stay on these cobblestone streets.

But that would be a mistake.

There are plenty of other vibrant neighborhoods.

Anyone in Montreal can grab a bike at a kiosk and take off for a neighborhood or around one of the many city parks.

Zip down Montreal's main drag, Boulevard Saint-Laurent, known to locals as "The Main."

It's the street that traditionally splits a city into the French area to the east and English to the west.

It runs through Old Montreal, through downtown and out to the neighborhoods of Plateau, Little Italy, and Mile End.

Montreal has a few terrific neighborhood markets, but massive Jean-Talon Market tops my list.

It brims with gorgeous locally-grown produce and Montreal markets offer a mind boggling array of local cheeses.

(man) I'm bringing you at the "Marché des saveurs", this is the jewel of the market for me.

You like cheese.

I like cheese, yes, of course.

Thank you sir.

We have, we speak French, I'm a North American that speak French that has a British culture inside of me.

And the bridge where we build in the late '50s, early '60s, between France and Quebec.

And there, on this food scene, will be a revolution of food that will happen.

(Rudy) And it's expressed today and we can express it in cheese right now.

(Ronald ) I think cheese is the best example of it.

If you go back in the '50s, cheddar was THE cheese, only a few monks and priests were doing cheddar.

What do we have here?

What do we have here?

This is a cheddar style cheese, made by goat cheese, okay.

So this never would have happened in England.

It never would have happened.

It does melt in your mouth, but it definitely is more firm, it is a marriage of the English and the French.

inspired by the French, but made here.

(Ronald) Exactly, when you take from another culture, you adapt it, and from your environment, and from there, it creates what you have today, and that's what we have.

♪ ♪ (Rudy) The market is in Montreal's Little Italy section of town, where old men play bocce ball and espresso buzzes through shoppers at Quincaillerie Dante, where you could pick up just about anything.

Elena, what kind of store is this?

(Elena) This is la quicaillerie.

La qicaillerie, what does that mean?

Yes, which is translated to hardware, which it used to be a hardware, but we change it to a kitchen store and a hunting store.

(Rudy) Wait a minute, since I came in I saw these Le Creuset pots, very famous pots.

Yes, that's right.

I see some decorative... Dishware.

dishware here.

Then you have... hunting knives, (Elena) All hunting knives, you have telescopes, you have guns, because hunting here in Quebec is very popular.

Hunters are good cooks.

They hunt, they cook it, then they eat it.

Excellent.

It can't get better.

(Rudy) Adjacent to Petite Italy is Mile End, a neighborhood of immigrants, artists, trendy kids, software designers, chic shops and neighborhood convenience stores.

In other words, it's quintessentially Montreal.

And Mile End is the bagel capital of Montreal.

Locals swear their bagels beat New York bagels by, well by a mile.

(Rudy) Robert, how are bagels made?

Well Montreal bagels, once we put all ingredients in the mixer, we let the dough rise, and once the dough is risen, we take it out and we put it on the table and each bagel is hand-rolled, boiled for about 5 minutes in our honey water, and then baked in our wood-burning oven.

(Rudy) I wanted to ask you about Montreal versus New York bagels; which do you prefer?

Without a doubt, the Montreal bagels are much better.

(Rudy) Because?

(Robert) Because of the procedure and the love we put into the bagel making.

I thought you might like the Montreal ones better.

Without a doubt.

44 bagels every 5 minutes, 24/7.

Oh yeah.

(Rudy) Montreal and Quebec City began as lonely outposts of New France, amid tribes of Algonquin d Iroquois Native people.

Explorer Jacques Cartier arrived in 1535 on a mandate from France, but the British also coveted this new land and its prosperous fur trade.

A long conflict ensued, which the British finally won by the mid 1700's.

Notre Dame de Montreal, built in 1830, tells the story in stained glass of the early settlement called Ville-Marie.

Catholicism had a deep hold in Quebec Province.

Missionaries braved the harsh New World to convert souls.

For centuries, the area remained strongly religious and conservative, but a spirit of secularism and independence swept the population in the 1960s, during a period known as "The Quiet Revolution."

In addition to pulling away from the rule of the tholic Church, Quebec citizens in the 1960s experienced a renewed nationalism.

A French majority was living under a group of English speakers who were the captains of industry.

Tensions were high between the 2 groups.

The Parti Québécois came into power in 1976, and it declared that it would employ strict language laws making French the language of government, business, and education.

The party proposed that Quebec Province secede from Canada and become independent, and it nearly passed a referendum to that effect in 1995.

(Charles de Gaulle) Vivre Montreal.

Vivre Quebec, vivre Quebec libre!

[cheering] (Rudy) Some 80% of the population today speaks French as the first language.

The Plateau Neighborhood, once the working-class French neighborhood, now attracts a young, hip crowd, and as always, it's a mix of cultures.

One of Plateau's main establishments is Schwartz's.

There's always a line at this traditional deli that's been slinging marinated meats since 1928.

[guitar plays in bright rhythm] ♪ ♪ Whoa, hello.

Thank you.

Merci.

There's only one thing to order here at Schwartz's and that's the smoked meat.

You've got 3 possibilities, lean, medium, and fatty.

I go with the medium fatty.

♪ ♪ I'm ready to move here.

(Rudy) The Plateau is laid back, youthful and inviting with its limestone townhouses with steep staircases, walk-up duplexes, bike racks, and pockets of funky shops and cafes.

♪ ♪ Southwest of Plateau is Montreal's namesake, the wooded hill and park called Mount Royal, where people hike and gather to gaze down on the city.

♪ ♪ Just east of Plateau, and closer to the river is the Latin Quarter in the neighborhood known as "The Village."

On a Friday afternoon, the bars and cafes are full and it's one of the liveliest neighborhoods in the city.

♪ ♪ The 1970s ushered in a new wave of art and culture in Quebec.

♪ ♪ Because the language police, or tongue patrol as they're sometimes called, insisted on French as the official language, suddenly writers, artists, and comedians found themselves employed to create French language television programming.

Something like 70% of TV is created locally.

The autonomy may ha something to do with the explosion of arts- related festivals in Montreal.

♪ ♪ In recent years, Montreal has attracted biotech, IT and telecommunication industries, and it's a leader in North America for the production of visual effects software.

There are 4 major universities in town, 2 English, 2 French.

And while all this means Montrealites work hard, they play equally hard.

A night on the town means dinner at any number of sophisticated world-class restaurants.

Perhaps the most famous of all is Toqué.

The name is a play on the word for a chef's hat and slang for crazy.

If that means crazy delicious, it's right on.

Co-owner Normand Laprise is Canadian-born and French-trained in cooking.

The plates at Toqué are works of art, temporal beauties that taste as good as they look.

This is a very large kitchen.

Yeah, that's right now you have 28 cooks working all together now.

28.

Yeah, they came from the morning time and they came from the nighttime.

What is yo philosophy of cooking, Chef?

Uh philosophy of cooking is about local, very local produce, we work with everything local.

Summertime is so easy, it's very fine, it's lots and lots of produce.

(Rudy) And I saw a couple of your dishes.

They're very precisely composed, you like that.

(Normand) Very delicate; I like you know, when we do dish, we can have 6, 7, 9 ingredients on a plate, but I like every ingredient have the real taste, you know.

And you play with the food, we play with the taste, and that's what I look when people eat the dishes.

Thank you chef.

Bon appétit.

Thank you so much.

This is a lovely summer salad, and I underline the word lovely.

It looks like a painting, it's beautiful!

Montreal's music scene is legendary and at clubs in The Village, Mile End or Plateau neighborhoods, songs in both French and English ring out.

[singing in French] ♪ ♪ I was invited to meet Hotel Morphée, a Montreal band with an ethereal sound.

Uh, what is the music scene like in Montreal?

The music scene is diverse; there's a lot of bands, uh, and it's a lot of fun, you get to hear a lot of different kind of music, and a lot of really good players.

♪ ♪ (Rudy) And how do you describe your music if someone meets you and asks you what kind of music you play?

We are half of the band, we are classical musicians.

Half of you are classical musicians.

Yeah, so maybe classical musician who tries to make uh, indie rock, yeah.

(Rudy) Indie rock with classical music.

(man) Yeah.

♪ ♪ It may be sacriligeous to follow up Toqué with poutine, but it's a Montreal tradition to chow down on this hearty mess after a night on the town.

Poutine originated in rural Quebec, and some interpret the word as meaning mess, and that it is.

French fries and cheese curds, smothered in dark gravy.

But if that's not crazy enough, La Banquise offers 22 variations on the theme.

I'm not here during rush hour, that would be 4:00 in the morning, but I got your basic poutine, which is called Le Classique.

And for the meat lovers in the world it's the T-Rex, meat and gravy over French fries.

And for lighter summer fare, it's a vegetarian thing over French fries.

Attention dieters-- poutine-- mmm!

Just like it's favorite snack food, Montreal is a rich crazy mess of Old World, New World, French and English, and newcomers from everywhere.

It's up to the minute sophisticated and down-home country.

Plop Paris down in the wilderness, wait 400 years, and you've got Montreal.

There's simply nothing like it anywhere else.

A high-speed train links Montreal to Quebec City in about 2-1/2 hours.

Quebec City, the birthplace of New France, straddles the St. Lawrence where the river narrows.

Quebec means narrow passage in the native Algonquin language.

It was at the base of these cliffs that Samuel de Champlain built the wooden huts in 1608 that began the city.

In time, the town scaled the cliffs and today's Quebec City is divided into Upper and Lower Towns.

Traditionally the Upper Town was for the businessmen, clergy, politicians, and the Lower was for sailors, prostitutes and the poor.

Outside of Mexico, Quebec City is the only walled city remaining in North America.

Quebec City clings to cliffs along the St. Lawrence some 150 miles northeast of Montreal.

The fortifications and the imposing Chateau Frontenac occupy the Upper Town.

The Old Town and port are found in the Lower Town.

If Montreal is the Paris of North America, Quebec is the Aix-en-Provence, dream of a small town where you can step back in time.

Turn any corner here and gasp at the colors, the architecture, the history, alleyways, flower boxes, and spires all bathed in a northern light.

Ah, "belle joli la vision," as the French would say.

Place Royal is where Champlain first settled.

He was a humanist, a forefather of the enlightenment.

He worked hard to befriend the native tribes he encountered on these cold, lonely shores, and he built alliances.

By 1635, when Champlain died, the colony had grown to a few hundred hearty souls.

Champlain's outpost soon drew the attention of the British who wanted to control the New World.

The city's walls were begun by the French, and then enhanced by the British when they came to power.

When the end came it was swift.

It took a mere 15 minutes for New France to fall to the British.

[marching band plays] ♪ ♪ In 1759, the British attacked Quebec City's cliff, took the French by surprise, and defeated them.

In 1867, Quebec joined Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, forming the Dominion of Canada.

Quebec City's most iconic landmark is the Chateau Frontenac.

It dominates, looming over the port in the Old Town.

This was one in a series of grand hotels built by the Canadian Pacific Railway in the late 1800s.

They were meant to entice people to travel.

Now a Fairmont property, this hotel, with more than 600 rooms, retains its Old-World charm.

It's cozy and dark and full of atmosphere.

The bar and restaurant have scrumptious views of the Lower Town and river.

♪ ♪ Like Montreal, Quebec City believes in organic products.

The market at the Old Port showcases all things local.

Everything in this market is grown on an island just 10 kilometers from here.

It's called the Ile d'Orléans and it's known as the Garden of Quebec.

On the Ile d'Orlean, or the Island of Orleans here, there's quite a bit of apple production.

Madame Bilodeau family has been growing apples for how many years?

25 years.

25, and you have a cider here.

Yes.

So this is the iced cider.

Made of frozen apple, serving cold, no ice.

Serving cold, no ice.

With cheese, bleu cheese.

It probably would be good with foie gras too.

Serving cold, yes.

That is intense apple.

Yes.

That is great!

Thank you.

(Rudy) I've just discovered that on the Ile d'Orléans, they grow black currants, which creates cassis, that's the purplish liqueur that they put drops in champagne to create a drink called Kir.

I'm here with Eric from... Cassis Monna & Filles.

We're going to start with the crème de cassis, basically it's the liqueur that you're going to put in champagne or in café or in pousse-peu white wine or white beer, or... Or on your ice cream.

Yeah, and ice cream or cheesecake.

So this is crème de cassis.

We won a few gold medals around the world.

Ooh, it tastes like a summer day on the Ile d' Orleans.

Oh yeah.

That is wonderful!

That's one of the great things about shopping in markets like these is you can taste what you're going to buy before you buy it.

You can't do that in the average store.

Much more fun this way.

The British allowed the French to keep their language, religion, and some laws.

While Parisian French is taught in school, the French of Quebec has its own dialect.

Some of the words survived from 17th-century France.

95% of the inhabitants of Quebec City speak French today.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ (Rudy) North America's oldest specialty grocery shop is Epicerie Jean-Alfred Moisan, founded in 1871.

It's a general store with a European touch, another example of New and Old World coming together.

Clément tell me a little of the history of North America's oldest grocery store.

That was a limitation food store.

Which means specialty store?

Specialty in that time.

Oh yes.

Even then, in the 1870s.

It was importing a lot of things from England.

And also, it was importing things from Boston, Portland, from USA.

Back even in the 1870's it was a grocery store.

Oh yeah, oh yeah, of course, of course.

You could find lots of things from England, teas from England, you could find some sweetie things like I would say molasses, which is from South.

Speaking of sweet things, you have enormous collection of chocolate around here.

Are you a chocolate guy?

Dark chocolate.

Dark chocolate, I am as well.

I see you have a few beers here.

(Clément) Oh microbrewers, in Quebec we are beer maker.

(Rudy) How many microbreweries do you have?

(Clément) I got here maybe 300 kinds.

(Rudy) 300 hundred beers.

It looks like an interesting combination, like Quebec itself, of French and English.

Yes, I cannot say we are friends, you know.

We are very, very French Canadian, and because we have products that we, they don't have in France, so many things have been learned from the first nation, native people.

And now we have all kinds of products like pearl, maple pearl, maple flaked sugar, things that we don't usually see outside of Quebec.

Well Clément, this is a gorgeous store.

Thank you very much.

For a fine dining experience in Quebec City, Panache reigns supreme.

Chef Francois Blais pulls together local ingredients, a long Québécois tradition and a French flare for presentation; and that's Panache.

There's a feel to cuisine.

(Rudy) The chef describes his philosophy.

The best ingredients as simple as possible, and then he illustrates it with a dish he prepares, local beef with new onions and a potato puree.

♪ ♪ Oh this is lovely, thank you.

As darkness falls, people rush to a free outdoor performance of Cirque du Soleil, the circus of acrobatics and performance art that began in a small town east of Quebec City nearly 3 decades ago.

Staged under a highway underpass, the circus turns an industrial setting into pure magic.

As I wander the streets of Quebec City, I try to envision the early settlers stepping into the wilderness, bringing their civilization, language and religion to the shores of a very new place.

Out of the clash of cultures between the British and the French, arose a unique civilization, a bilingual society with different sensibilities that came together to thrive in a new land.

It's a mélange of old and new, French and British, back country and urban that gives these 2 Canadian cities their singular panache.

Maybe it can all be summed up in this, a maple tart.

It's a heart-stopping concoction of pastry, maple sugar, and a dollop of ice cream, sort of a mix of the New and Old World, just as delectable as the Province of Quebec and it's 2 great cities.

I'm Rudy Maxa... au vient te... and ooh-la-la.

Finding a restaurant in a new city can be a challenge, especially a city popular with tourists.

What I do is speak with a hotel concierge, explain that I don't really want a touristy restaurant, and ask where he or she dines when they want a nice dinner out on the town.

More often than not, you'll be steered to something local and special.

In Montreal I was stunned at how far in advance restaurants are booked.

Do some research at home and book a night at one of the city's finest.

Some of Montreal's top chefs such as Normand Laprise have opened more casual eateries, in addition to their flagship restaurants.

Organic produce is all the rage in Quebec Province.

Bothontreal and Quebec City display fleur-de-lis on signs at the markets to indicate locally-grown products.

Restaurants often have rooftop gardens and Quebec City gets its produce from a nearby island.

I never fail to pick up some locally-grown berries and bring them back to my hotel to augment breakfast.

(woman) For links and photos of the places featured in "Rudy Maxa's World," and other savvy traveling tips, visit maxa.tv.

To order DVDs of "Rudy Maxa's World," visit maxa.tv.

♪ ♪ CC--Armour Captioning & TPT (woman) Funding for "Rudy Maxa's World" is provided by the following... (woman) Orbitz salutes the neverending spirit of adventure and as a proud sponsor of "Rudy Maxa's World" Orbitz offers comprehensive information on the world's great destinations.

From custom vacation packages to in-depth mobile tools your trip begins on Orbitz.

Take vacation back!

[Korean janggu drums play in bright rhythm] (man) Korea, be one with earth and sky.

(woman) And by Delta, serving hundreds of destinations worldwide.

Information to plan your next trip available at delta.com.

[orchestral fanfare] ♪ ♪