If you love Paris in the springtime, then you’ll adore Quebec City in the wintertime, where, for 17 days, the party never stops.
Quebec City’s Winter Carnival is the largest in the world, attracting more than one million people. I was one of those fortunate people to arrive in this fortified city on the first day of the 2013 Winter Carnival. I spent the morning sledding down an ice chute, viewing the impressive ice castle, made from 1600 blocks of ice, eating maple syrup on snow, and playing a human game of foosball. Attached to bars with seatbelts, you slide all over the ice trying to kick the ball into the goal. But the party really started on Saturday night, when top DJs from Montreal and Toronto played a mesmerizing mix of hip-hop and electronica to a crowd of revelers outside the ice castle. Locals carry cane-like red sticks filled with a potent drink called Caribou, made of whiskey, red wine, and maple syrup, which certainly added to the dancing frenzy. When Bonhomme, the popular snowman and revered host of the festivities started to boogie, the crowd went wild.
This is just the start of the 58th edition of the Quebec City Winter Carnival. Still to come is Le Grande Virée, a dogsled race that cruises through the heart of the historic Old City, and the ice canoeing competition, where paddlers sprint across the turgid waters of the St. Lawrence Seaway. New this year is a video installation, where filmmakers project images onto four of the iconic buildings in town, creating a 3-D interplay. There’s also a brasserie, serving 25 microbrews from across Quebec. So if you have no plans yet for February vacation week, it might be the time to experience some joie de vivre in Quebec City.
I was so impressed with my first visit to Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens in Boothbay, back when I was penning a story on Linekin Bay Resort for The Boston Globe, that I knew I’d be back some day. I’m happy I made that wise decision. In my opinion, it’s the finest botanical garden in the northeast after the Bronx and Montreal. We first strolled through the Butterfly House to see the intriguing caterpillars (one looked like an aboriginal art painting) and butterflies. Then wandered around the Garden of the Five Senses, a real highlight. We smelled the sweet lemon verbena, touched the soft, velvety lamb’s ear, even took off our shoes to walk on the smooth stones of the reflexology spiral. Just as magical is the Children’s Garden, where the stone paths lead to fish-filled ponds, oversized cabbages, hungry chickens, and small huts filled with hand-made puppet-sized fairies. Adults seem to have just as much fun here as the children. Oh, did I mention all the flowers in bloom last week, including rows of white hydrangea and sweet-smelling roses? Give yourself at least 3 hours to be nurtured by all this beauty. 
Travel as much as I do and it’s always wise to have several 
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