Up early and packing up the car. Today’s drive was an easy 3 hours down the
road to Quebec City along the St. Lawrence River. We will follow that river all the way to the
ocean. A lovely drive through farmland
and rolling countryside.
We arrived in Quebec City earlier than we had anticipated,
and thought we would take a quick drive through the Old City. The traffic was daunting. We never were able to find a place to park, and
soon were snarled up with many cars, as well as tour buses, and people arriving
for a music festival. We decided we just
needed to get to our AirBnB apartment and park our car! Which we did.
We met up with our host, a nice woman who spoke very little English so
communication was challenging, but we got settled into our basement apartment
in a over 100 year-old home. Look at the right side of the building and you see a brown door. That was the entrance to our basement apartment. Here is the
link for photos if you would like to take a peek. ) https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/5328657)
In the early afternoon, we deiced to take advantage of the
lovely weather (knowing the forecast was for rain coming tomorrow). We walked about 20 minutes over to a battlefield
park, where there had been a couple of important battles between the French and
the English. This is now a park which
combines monuments, museums, playgrounds, and wide open spaces. Our first stop was the statues on the outside of the Beaux Arts Museum. Patti couldn't resist being a part of the display.
Dick had more energy and was interested in
reading about the battle strategies. We stopped at the Martella Tower 1, overlooking the St. Lawrence River.
Patti was running out of gas and suggested that they skip the museum and
tour there. So man things to do,
sometimes, not enough energy and time to do them all.
We did have the energy for a photo at the entrance to the Tower. We were enjoying the day, especially the good weather.
Patti got a bump of energy from a free sample of
Nutella (and Patti won a couple of free combination spoon/knife utensils And
got to have her picture taken with her name on the Nutella jar. Highlight!)
We then walked to the Old City, still surrounded by a stone wall. We entered through the St. Louis Gate, a path we would follow several times over the days in Quebec. We learned later that most of the fortifications had been created during the American Revolution and the War of 1812, to thwart American forces attacking the British in the City. Possibly due to the extensive fortifications, this attack never happened. Such attacks did happen further to the West.
We enjoyed walking around the Old City and saw some of the sites
in the lovely afternoon clear sky. We
went to things like the Citadel where we saw the changing of the Guard. It was a smaller scale than what happened in Ottawa but still fun to watch the pageantry.
The Chateau Frontenac is the iconic site of Quebec. This old hotel has been updated inside but still carries that ambience of the place the wealthy stay when they visit the city. The Chateau was so famous and had been there since the late
1800’s. It was very lavish, but a
lifestyle that didn’t have much appeal to us.
The rooms there ran probably $300-400 or more per night. We are okay with our basement apartment in a
typical Quebec residential area.
On the river side of the Chateau was a great Salvador Dali statue of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Of course, Patti had to join the statute.
The Basilica of Notre Dame is the oldest church in Canada. Situated in the middle of the Old City, it is a dramatic sight to behold.
We wandered many of the old streets. Lots of lovely old amazing French-style buildings,
cobblestone streets. It reminded us of
walking the streets in Charté, France and in neighborhoods in Paris. The French influence is everywhere. Including
you heard French being spoken on every corner.
(Except by the tourists…lots of tourists from all over, including many
Spanish-speaking people.) In the late
afternoon most of the tourists got on their buses and left and we had the old
city more to ourselves.
The walk back went more slowly as we had walked more than 7
miles that day. Tired legs! We stopped at an Indian restaurant for
dinner. This was filled with local people out for a local nice dinner. We were the only non-French speaking people
in the restaurant. The sidewalk cafes close to the old city were filled with
young people drinking beer waiting for the music festival. Not our scene. Glad to be in a more quiet area. Off to bed.
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