Sun July 24 - Tues July 26: Hanging in Quebec City

Rick speaking:

Quebec is an amazing city, one of the oldest non-native cities in North American and our plan was to tour and take it all in.  Founded by Samuel Champlain in 1608, Quebec is one of the first Unesco World Heritage cities in the world, and it clearly deserves that designation.  It is the only walled city north of Mexico City-  and they have Poutine!   I mean what else could you ask for - wonderful old European-type narrow streets AND French fries covered with cheese curds and gravy.  Too bad it was so hot and humid that we didn’t have any desire to carbo-load….

On Sunday Melanie found a fun downloadable audio tour for us and we spent much of the day walking around with our earphones on, listening to interesting things about the city, its history and architecture.   

To make Mel happy we had to see the “Victorian Library” at the Morrin Center - Linda was happy because it is where Louise Penny wrote her Inspector Gamache series.

Street Performer in front of The Frontenac Hotel which opened in 1893.
I wonder if the original owner would be happy with the performance? 

Quebec City still has many of the original 17th century houses

The weather forecast called for rain and it was an oppressively hot and humid Saturday.  We met Mike (sorry - I know he is Michael, but he’ll always be Mike to me) and Linda for a picnic in the park and then the 4 of us continued on the tour, sweating as we walked to one of the old town gates. 

The St. Jean Gate - remember this is the only walled city north of Mexico City…

Mixed in with the old architecture there is some Beau Arts and Art Deco.

We said good-bye to Mike and Linda and then headed down into the older part of the old city.  There is a funicular that will take you up or down from the lower old city to the upper part, but we decided to walk.  It was crowded and we verified Mike and Linda’s finding there there was an ice cream shop about every 5th store.  But it was quaint and we enjoyed wandering down the narrow winding streets.  Here are some pictures to show you the historical buildings. 

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Sunday took on a more cultural tone and we headed to the Museum of Civilization to see the “O Merde” exhibit.   Actually the museum had a number of very interesting exhibits - History of Quebec,  and an extensive First Nations exhibit, a body movement exhibit using motion capture that was very interesting, but the best exhibit was focused on - excrement, shit, body waste.  The idea was to show many aspects on the subject and at the end teach us how important it is to deal with our waste product carefully and efficiently.

The museum was very well done and had many interactive kid focused activities which we enjoyed very much. 

“O Merde” an excellent exhibit

We had fun behaving like kids!

Here we share more pictures of the beautiful Quebec City!

It's all about 'you'!

Mel especially loved the church that had been turned into a library - that is how she worships, after all.

On Tuesday morning we dusted off our bikes and headed out to the Montmorency Falls that were about 7 miles from the marina.  As we learned in previous visits to Quebec they have wonderful bicycle trails which we took advantage of to visit this awe inspiring waterfall - 30 meters (whatever a meter is) higher than Niagra Falls.   In winter the spray from the falls freezes and accumulates at the base, where it forms what is knows as the 'sugar loaf' - the 'pain de sucre'.

 

 

 On the ride back to the marina, as we fought against the wind, we rode past this awesome graffiti.  We had often referred to our sweaty selves as having this ailment - it was strange to see it written on the wall of the bike path. In English...

 

 

 

 

 

As part of the trip we had wanted to ride over to Ile d’Orleans but once we saw the bridge, the traffic and most of all the hills to get there we decided not to subject ourselves to the trip.  We wanted to try strawberries from the island so we went to the supermarket and bought some!

 

 

 

 

At the end of the day on Tuesday, we prepared for the next day by getting fuel and a pump out and then exited the marina through the lock.  We tied up at the “early morning” dock as we planned to leave at 4:30 am the next morning to catch the best tide for our long day to see whales at our next stop. 

 

We are happy to be leaving before Wed, as it turns out the Pope is coming to Canada and he will stop in Quebec City on Wednesday.  The streets are now lined with no parking signs and big fences - what a mess it is going to be.  He is coming to apologize for the involvement of the Catholic Church in 're-education schools' for the indigenous population.  After many mass graves were uncovered this year, it became an international issues here (as in so many places).