June 12, 2012 Vieux Quebec

Quebec (the province) is very French. Unless you’re close to a border all signs are totally in French. They add pictures to give non-French speaking a fighting chance. It’s not always clear what the pictures represent however. But, as I mentioned we made it to the campground without mishap and opted to take advantage of the free shuttle ride to Vieux Quebec.

The shuttle pickup was to be at 9:15 for a 10 am tour.  The shuttle was early by 20 minutes, but Dusty had been walked and we were ready to go.  The shuttle driver explained to us that the tour started at 11 am and the return shuttle would be at 4. That wasn’t going to be good for Dusty. The driver tried to set an alternative for us but was unable to so we elected to drive ourselves. The shuttle driver had shown us on the map how to get to the Touriste Bureau where the tour would start. Pretty easy…just follow the road the RV park is on into the city and turn right at the train station ( the chateau). Then a couple of easy turns and voila. Of course it wasn’t that easy. Getting to the old city was a piece of cake. Finding a parking place, not so much. The “old city” is just that and very, very French. Founded in 1608, the streets are not what you’d call wide. Many of them are one way only. We passed by several parking options that Rob either didn’t see or didn’t like. In the end we found a parking lot with meters and took it. $.50 for 15 minutes. We fed it enough of my laundry money for 4 hours. We had wound around so much we didn’t know where we were. A short perusal of the map and we headed “downtown”, about 6 blocks away.  We were joined on the tour by a couple from Saskatchewan, a family from Australia, and a few others from various other parts of Canada. We walked for two hours, first in the upper city then in the lower city. Vieux Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain for the French. You might remember him from our visit to St. Andrews where he founded a settlement that failed. He was more successful with Quebec and is known as the father of Quebec. There is a grand statue of him commemorating his accomplishments. However, the statue is not really of de Champlain as no one knew what he looked like. A likely individual was chosen and became the face of Samuel de Champlain. The city was built on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River in a spot where the river narrows. (The name comes from the Indian word meaning “where the river narrows”.)  The site specifically chosen for that attribute for protection since cannon fire would be able to reach any marauders coming by river. The French and the British fought over the site for several years with the British successfully defeating the French. Another monument memorializes the leaders of both the British, Wolfe, and the French, Montcalm, for their heroism. The lower city of Quebec is basically built on fill and seems to be settling a bit each year. The original city was completely walled with walls 10 feet tall and gates as entrances. It is still walled, however, many of the walls have been shortened so the inhabitants have a view of the river. The gates were removed, but have been restored in recent years. Our walk ended in the lower city just below where we started. We needed to return to the start so we could find our way back to the car. Our option was to walk up another stairway from hell or take the funicular. You know what we did. We had spied an Italian restaurant on our way down that we thought we’d try for lunch. We started back to our car and I completely missed the restaurant although Rob says he saw it. As it had been some time since we parked and we were close we went to check on the time left on the car. We still had about an hour, but we added another 30 minutes anyway and went to have lunch. The Italian place was closed on Mondays and Tuesdays so we went across the street to the Café de Paris. A small, Parisian style café serving mainly Italian food, not crowded at all and they spoke English. They had a lunch special menu that included soup, entrée, dessert and coffee or tea. Rob selected off the main menu while I had one of the lunch specials. We both had a glass of wine to ease our weary feet. Soup was served, very good.  As the waiter picked up the soup dishes I pointed to some soup that I had spilled on my place mat. Although he spoke English it was heavily accented and we both thought he asked us if we wanted more soup.  We said no, and he proceeded to pick up our place mats and silverware. A few moments later he returned with new placemats and silverware and explained that he had asked if we had more food coming. He wasn’t the waiter that took our order so he didn’t know what we had ordered. We had finished our glass of wine so ordered a ½ liter more to go with lunch. We had been hearing the dessert options offered to other diners and Rob decided he didn’t want any. Our waiter brought the menu back and suggested we have the Sabayon off the menu instead of the offerings from the lunch menu. So okay, we caved. It came laced with Gran  Marnier floating on top and a cookie soaking it up. Potent stuff.  Instead of bringing our coffee and tea, he next brought, unsolicited,  two liqueur glasses of a flaming liquid with coffee beans floating in it, Sambuco, which I’ve never had.  It was delicious.  Good thing we knew exactly where the car was. We hurried uphill as time was running out. In fact, time had run out on the meter, but we were lucky to get there before the meter readers. At least we hope so.

The only French building surviving. Every other building had burned down at some point and was rebuilt.

Typical view of the residential area. Because this is a designated historic area, exteriors are to be maintained as originally built, including wood framed windows which require painting annually because of the weather.

Rob admiring yet another cannon. He has a thing for big guns.

This is actually a trompe l'oeil fresco covering the entire side of this building. There were probably about 100 students sitting along the wall having their lunch. 

One of the reconstructed gates.

Chateau Frontenac

Originally built for Canadian Pacific Railroad. It's been added on to several times and is currently being refurbished. It's now a Fairmont Hotel but is still the iconic picture of Quebec seen on most postcards and posters.

There were buskers all around the central square in front of the Frontenac. This one was getting ready to pretend to be a statue.

The monument to de Champlain. Another busker is setting up in front.

Check out the sky in the background. It rained all afternoon (after we were safely in the coack) and all night.

 

Looking from the upper city to the lower city and across the river at the choke point. Across the river is Levis, Quebec.