Quebec

Thursday 2 September

After leaving Montreal we drove along the freeway towards Quebec City.

Peiter, our tour manager, decided that using the freeway was getting a little boring so we diverted onto the Chemin du Roy, the Kings Road, which took us through a number of picturesque villages and farmland. It also provided great views across the water of the St Lawrence.

Maize was a common crop

A view across the wide expanse of the St Lawrence

We arrived in Quebec with plenty of time for lunch before doing a city tour with a local guide.  We decided to try one of the local dishes which people had been raving about, pautine. This is freshly cut and cooked fries topped in cheese curd and covered in gravy. [It is the dish on the left in the photo below]. It was OK but nothing to die for. Our other lunch dish calamari served with a hoersradish and orange marmalade sauce.

Suitably replenished it was time to start our city tour.

Our guide, Christine, took us through the narrow and twisted streets of the older sections of Quebec. Roy, our bus driver, managed the challenging conditions presented by narrow, winding streets, heavy traffic and lack of parking as we got off the bus a number of times to walk through parts of the old town.

The Quebec Parliament is an impressive building as can be seen from the photos below.  There are niches on the front filled with an array of statues. In front of the building is an enclosed fountain with even more statues, Quebec is full of statues. Then there are the gardens leading up to the building and the even more impressive fountain in front of the parliament precinct.

Here are photos taken during the tour and later that night.

I didn't take all that many photos during the tour.

Our hotel, the Delta Quebec,was very near the parliament. Very central with easy access to all the sites. The quiky thing about the hotel is that you needed to take two escalators from the street level to reach the lobby.

Having checked in to the hotel we were free to do our own thing so we headed off to walk around the walls of the old city.

There are a number of gates in the wall

Here is a night view of the gate

This photo gives an ideda of the size of the walls. Can you see the person walking at the base of the wall?

Trevor standing by one of the many guns that were positioned around the walls to defend the city

One of the guns overlooking the river. It was able to be swung around on a wheeled platform providing greater coverage of the waterway below

Quebec is full of intersting buildings, many dating back centuries.

Friday 5 September

On Friday morning we headed out to the local waterfall, Montmorency Falls. These falls are higher than Niagara although not nearly as wide. Nor is the volume of water as great as Niagara. Still, they were impressive.

We used the local bus system to get out to the falls. There was a stop almost opposite our hotel and for the cost of $3.25, the cash fare, we were whisked through the city centre and surrounding suburbs on an hour long ride. The drivers, a different one on the way back to the one going out, seemed very tolerant of passengers popping up after the doors were closed, assisting people with where to get off and then how to get to wherever they were going,as too were the passengers on the bus. The buses were both well used. The service ran every 10 minutes throughout the day.

Falls? What fall? A view along the river from one of the bridges

Still not much in the way of falls. This photo was taken from the footbridge immediately above the falls

OK ... so there really are falls... as can be seen from the spray

And finally a view of the falls. Steps, as can be seen in this photo, go from the clifftop down to the base.

Note the logs in the bottom right of this photo

The logs looked like matchsticks

While Trevor took a cablecar back to the top I went back up to the top by the stairs.

Part of the stairway down from the top

Once we got back to our hotel we headed out to check out the local laundromat and washing was duly done. Just across the street from the laundromat was a chocolateire. We indulged in some very yummy icecream. Their chocolates look great but we did manage to resist.

While Trevor kept an eye on the washing I headed off to do some shopping.

The day had been quite warm, 29 according to my information, and very humid. It felt like it could rain but, apart from a couple of drops, held off. After the shopping and washing we headed off to do another walk through the older sections of the city.

This alleyway is used by local artists to sell their wares.

 

The city has a heap of statues dotted all over it. This is just one of many

 

Trevor with his dinner

Having encountered all sorts of special events in a number of the places we had visited Quebec did not disappoint. One of the main streets was blocked off and a band performed for the gathering crowd.