A weekend in Québec City - July 2022
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On the road again......
Yes, here we are again on the road in Mary Jane, this time going East to Québec City to meet up with JR and get in another provincial capital. We headed out by crossing the Ottawa river and driving around Montreal to the North with our first stop Shawinigan - another of those towns with a tax office for Hild to shake a fist at! |
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| The point of visiting Shawinigan was really to find a place to stop and have lunch (sandwiches and tea) and Hild directed us to a park where we could see the Shawinigan Falls Hydro dam. Unfortunately, there were no picnic sites that we could find so we set up our own in the car park. This seemed to be a common issue as a number of cars came past (without stopping) but with people inside looking longingly at our lunch... |
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| We made it to Québec City in good time to meet up with JR at his downtown hotel - the Marriott. And when we say downtown, we mean downtown - this is JR and Hild outside the hotel in Place d'Youville in front of St John Gate - go through that gate and you are on the main restaurant street in Vieux Québec! |
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| And just to prove where we are .... |
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| So, for anyone who isn't aware, Québec City sits on a steep hill rising from the St Lawrence river. If a street isn't going down, there are steps going up. Google doesn't seem to know this so we caution against using Google Maps to plan a route to get anywhere in Québec City - pulling up these streets in traffic is not easy on the clutch! |
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In fact, just walk, because otherwise you are not going to be able to appreciate just how many sights there are to see: From big buildings with fountains to play in... |
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| To small fountains - with BIG eyes - and imposing center-pieces... |
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| Québec City is recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. |
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Center stage is the Le Chateau Frontenac - a very posh hotel built in the late 19th Century to cater to the rising tourism of the period.
We popped in to use the bathroom - and nearly photo-bombed a military wedding! Although too rich for our credit cards, the Chateau does make for a very useful point of reference as it can be seen from many places - see if you can spot it in some of our earlier (and later) photos! |
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| In front of the Chateau is a broad boardwalk called Dufferin Terrace. This was a popular promenade in earlier days and a toboggan slide was built for some winter fun. The area is still popular with buskers and street performers. |
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Our visit had coincided with a big summer festival, which meant that we couldn't get into the Citadel area of the old city as it was being used as an outdoor concert venue.
But in the evening light the provincial parliament building was quite special with many of the seminal figures in Québec history backlit on the facade. As night fell we wandered the streets full of people until our feet got sore and then headed back to our hotel. |
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On Saturday morning we chose discretion over valour and found a car park low down on the banks of the river close to the Port and walked to the Old City from there.
The port is still very active for both recreation (including swimming!) and commercial activities. |
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| The Canadian Coast Guard is also based here in Québec City - although these ships weren't in port while we were there. Hild, of course, spotted the photo of the icebreaker and Arctic Ocean research vessel CCGS Amundsen named after the Norwegian Arctic explorer Roald Amundsen. |
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| From Québec City the St Lawrence river goes straight out to the Atlantic ocean and a lot of stuff gets brought out of Canada and the US through the Great Lakes to Québec City for trans-shipping. We have a feeling that we saw this ship in Thunder Bay a few weeks ago taking on board Canadian grain from the prairies - it had certainly come up river from Montreal over the past three days (the furthest back we could track its progress on MarineTraffic.com! |
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| We were actually held up by the Algoma Equinox when we took a ferry across the St Lawrence to Levis on the south bank. JR had suggested the ferry trip as a good way to see Québec City from the river, but much of Levis sits on another steep hill and Hild (once again) found some stairs to climb to get the view from the top. A lot of stairs, but the view is worth it (with the Chateau Frontenac once again center stage!). |
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| Back on the Québec City (north) side of the river, Rob put his (tired) foot down and we got a ride up the cliff on the funicular. Originally built in 1879, the current version is a bit more photogenic, with glass carriages so you can take photos as you ride. |
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| Old Québec is a warren of small streets with many photo-opportunities - as long as you don't mind getting photo-bombed by the Chateau! A standard photo is on the "Escalier Casse-Cou" or the "Breakneck Steps"! - and the swing at the Royal Battery. |
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There are some clever murals as well.... At the huge Fresque des Québécois on Côte de la Montagne,
Hild chose to stand next to Samuel de Champlain who founded Québec in 1608. Rob chose to join
the kids in a hockey game.
The other mural is found at the other end of the oldest commercial district in North America: Quartier du Petit-Champlain. The mural depicts milestones in the history of Cap-Blanc, Québec City's working-class waterfront neighbourhood, from the beginnings of New France until the present day. |
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As you might expect, there are a lot of monuments to important figures from Québec's history.
Pierre Dugua De Mons was the man who instructed Samuel de Champlain to colonize New France and thus found Québec - as well as explore a lot of the rest of Canada. Honoré-Mercier was the 9th premier of Québec and an ardent defender of Québec's autonomy within Confederation. At the Montmorency Park National Historic Site some of the earliest settlers are commemorated for establishing the original colony. |
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Francois de Laval was the first bishop of Québec and created a very strong religious basis for the development of the province.
As well as cities in Québec named after him, the University in Québec City is named in his honor and he was made a Saint in 1980.
The Muses inspired Rob and Hild to sit down and muse a bit themselves. The two standing muses represent music and eloquence; those seated (other than Rob and Hild) represent, from left to right, architecture, sculpture, painting and lyric poetry. The statue was a gift to Québec City on its 375th anniversary, in 1983. |
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| Some of the monuments are a bit more generic - and placed in some interesting places. The log-drivers' memorial is tucked in between two buildings on Rue Saint-Louis and you can easily miss it - with no water in sight. At the least the Merchant Sailors' memorial is out by the docks! |
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| Some are easy to understand - the Celtic Cross is quite recognizable and reflects the strong Irish contingent in the city. However, the Monument for Christian Schools is a bit more prosaic - although very cleverly made (justice can't be done in 2d photos - you have to see this in real life to see how it works in 3d). |
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| But for all the history and monuments, it is still a city of people who take a pride in their homes, which look really lovely. Especially in the nice sunny weather we enjoyed! We loved the look of all the roof-top gardens. Would have been fun to have one of those. |
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| The steep mountain-side doesn't stop people building here - I would like to know if the rock is part of the inside wall as well! |
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| On Sunday we drove a short way out of Québec City to Montmorency Falls. These impressive falls are just up from the where the Montmorency river joins the St Lawrence and there is a park there with a restaurant and a cable car up to a suspension bridge. |
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| In the summer these are lovely and in the winter they look pretty spectacular too. In some years a "sugarloaf" hill of frozen snow/ice is created by the falls. In 1829 it reached a record height of 38 metres! |
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| So you can drive to the top of the falls or take a cable car, but what did we do on this hot summer day?: Yes, you guessed it, we took the stairs - all four hundred and eighty seven of them! |
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| Whichever way you get to the top - road, cable car, stairs - the view is fabulous from the suspension bridge. You can also stand there and watch (crazy) people zooming across the falls on a zip line! |
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| You can even see Québec City from some vantage points - is that the Chateau Frontenac on the skyline? |
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We took the obligatory selfie at the top - JR came out best, but we are blaming that on a combination of hat-hair and wind.... We did enjoy a lovely lunch overlooking the river - thanks to JR booking us an outside table and the walk down was significantly more relaxing! |
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Back in Québec City we made true on our goal to walk along the top of the old city walls. We chose to walk from St. Louis Gate to St. John's Gate.
It was a beautiful day for it with lots of people enjoying the day, walking, sitting on the grass, and generally just going about their business.
We didn't go in, but enjoyed the view of the building on Place d'Youville that houses Robert Lepage's Ex Machina theatre. We have enjoyed several of his plays at the National Art Centre in Ottawa as well as loving his first movie "Jesus of Montreal". |
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| From St. John's Gate we could see straight down Rue Saint-Jean where all the restaurants are lined up with many happy people. |
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| At St. John's Gate we descended down from the wall to Artillery Park - a part of the Fortifications of Québec. Just our luck it was 5 minutes before closing time so we couldn't visit the inside of any of the buildings. Instead we took a peek through the windows of the Gun Carriage Stand and some big cannons - both long and stumpy ones - and lots of cannonballs stacked and ready. |
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We continued our walk around the Fortifications and found some old barracks near Dauphine Redoubt. The big white structure
was built in early 1700s and has been maintained as a building typical of French classicism.
Further down the hill we could see L'îlot des Palais, the archaeological museum dating back to the 18th century. We of course were smart/lazy enough to not climb down the hill for a visit, because we knew they were closed for the day... |
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| During one of our many walks crisscrossing the city we came across the Connaught Barracks. We learnt that this is the site where General Montgomery was buried after the 1775 battle against the American invasion led by Colonel Benedict Arnold. Leading up to the battle, the Continental Congress hinting that "if you won't join our battle against the British, we'll attack you at home.". In the end the Americans gave up and went home. |
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| Another goal of ours was to find the original site of the famous Cannonball-tree. Our dear friend, Norah, used to live in the house next to the cannonball-tree and had told us stories about it. The dead tree and the cannonball were removed in March 2021 so we only just missed it. Still it was fun to have seen the site and taken a photo in front of Norah's door. |
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| One of our walks took us up onto the Plains of Abraham. Our stroll was easy compared to the route taken by Wolfe sneaking up on Montcalm in that famous battle. People were enjoying the beautiful day lounging in the park near the Martello Tower and relaxing in the nearby Joan of Arc Garden. |
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| All weekend we kept coming upon various art installations - some were more readily understood while others not so much. The four-poster-bed floating in the harbour and a big standing stone in a shopping cart are examples of the latter. |
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Outside a church "The Human Condition" was portrayed with a pineapple, a bunch of bananas,
a bird bath, and a human scull. Further along wall carvings illustrated human life ending in "Nous sommes un peuple",
we are one people.
The Royal Battery down by the river had one of Ai Weiwei's art installations called "Life Jackets". Very descriptive of what we could see - donated/discarded life jackets in a colourful display. |
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The art kept coming - as one would expect in Québec - This display was for the 125th year of something...
with the quote "coulent les jours, glissent les saisons, le regard plane sur le temps" translated to
"the days flow, the seasons glide, the gaze hovers over time". Very nice.
On a building in Old Québec we spotted this unexplained balloon art. Hm.... Looked fantastic, though. A large green pedestal called "Traces of our Spaces" is a very shiny display of fruits and other items designed by high school students in Québec City's Vanier neighbourhood. |
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On our way along Rue Saint Pierre to our next restaurant meal, we found these inventive flower pots
made from repurposed paint buckets.
All over town we kept bumping into cannons of all shapes and sizes. Got to love the stumpy ones! Down by the Royal Battery we found this very fancy bird house. Some fun signs were spotted - do not climb on this fence, and please gather here for noodle soup? I don't know. |
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With JR's excellent choice of restaurants, we had a fantastic weekend of enjoying food. "Les Trois Garcons" (the three
waiters) had three trousers hanging up on the wall also doubling as plant pots... Funny!
Of course the "Cochon Dingue" had a crazy pig standing in a plant pot looking in through the window. At "Lapin Saute" (jumping rabbit) we enjoyed rabbit poutine. Maybe that is why the rabbit was trying to jump away!? Rounding off our trip we enjoyed fancy venison burgers at "Chic Shack" also with delicious milk shakes served in jars. Very cool and chic. |
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All good things must come to and end - they keep telling us - and come Monday then we had to drive back home.
We of course try to prolong all fun things, so we stopped in Hawkesbury for a picnic lunch by the Ottawa River.
A holiday is not complete without pancakes made on our camping stove. Yummy! |
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July 2022