Memoir Of Quebec City

Its been 3 years in Canada and my memoirs of Canadian cities continues. Hubby and I have a penchant for traveling and so always try to make the most of the long weekends. The year I came to Canada, Montreal was on my bucket list. Next on the list was to see the bustling NYC and beautiful Washington DC. In-spite of tight schedules, we also managed to explore The Windy City (Chicago) and Capital City of Canada--Ottawa, in the other long weekends,. So, this year to continue the tradition of the long weekends, we  bag packed to Ville de Quebec. The oldest French settlement in North America. The city portrays the classic fortifications.

I had heard a lot about Quebec City from my friends and family, and wanted be a part of  the traditional French life. I am always smitten by the French lifestyle,and Quebec did lure me towards it, because of my biased inclination of French culture including the dresses, the houses, the home decor, the small boutiques , the language , the etiquette .Well everything about it!! There is a sense of weird discipline among the people for the culture.I would say , Quebec didn't disappoint me at all.

Renting a cars brings a lot of ease, comfort, and adds a flavor to the vacation (lets accept it, everyone gets bored of driving the same car especially for a long journey like this one ) .Impromptu plans gives you less time to anticipate the unknown,and lets you enjoy the Present (frankly speaking, after lot of procrastination, we had finally  booked our hotel , at the last minute, its just difficult to take out time during weekdays )  The plan was to leave on Saturday morning, spend the first night in Montreal ,the second night in Quebec City  and come back on Monday night. I worked from home on Friday to save my commute time, and instead went for shopping ( as I just talked about my love for French holiday ,  I wanted to have a perfect dress to roam around in the streets of Quebec City, and hence "Forever 21" was a one stop solution ) 

So Friday night  was spent in bag packing , making sandwiches for our long journey and sleeping real late (that's the fun of the night before a vacay) The next day , we woke up a bit late(as expected ) and got the car. We had booked a full sized car to check out a new car, but they ran  out of cars (reason -- the first long weekend of summer ), and so we got an SUV "Toyota -Rav4 " It was. Well we always rent a sedan or wish to rent  a convertible but never an SUV and so we grabbed the opportunity to try something new . 

And that's how our journey to The Quebec City began ,we left at around 11 in the morning , and reached Montreal at around 4.30 pm. 

We had booked a room at hotel Comfort Inn , the one close to the airport , that's around 20 minutes from Montreal downtown ( a word of advice , it's always good to live in downtown , but this one is a good location it has a metro station quite near by , and the best way to explore a city is using the subway so works out well and cheaper than the high downtown rates ) 

 So , we checked in , freshened up , took a map of Montreal from reception (I know we have Google for everything ,but I am a bit old school in this , I love to have  a map in my hand , where I plot the places I wish to go ) . Well this was our second visit ,so we had already been to the main tourist attractions in our last visit , but it was good to recollect and go back in memories. Last time we were in Montreal during the jazz festival, so we had felt the good vibe and had  fallen in love with the city and  had decided to visit it again and again just to enjoy --it being one of the best party cities in Canada) . 

We decided to roam around in the downtown , and went to the St Catherine's street (the hub for shopping ,restaurants and pubs)  After lot of walking  we ended up going to Les 3 Brasseurs (The 3  brewers , it's a chain of restaurant which  you find on every street in Montreal , it's a very old chain first founded in Paris , and as the name suggests it's famous for its craft beer ) We enjoyed the rest of the evening in the downtown.

So the next day we woke up ,and had our breakfast at comfort Inn ( it's always good to stay in a hotel , that serves free breakfast to give a good start to your day , although I would recommend the breakfast of Holiday Inn over comfort Inn )  and left for the most fascinating city. 

We reached Quebec at around 1,30 PM,  and went to the Montmorency Falls. These falls are at a height of 89 m, that's 30 m higher than the Niagara Falls , but not as wide as Niagara. They fall from the Majestic St Lawrence River. The forte of this  place is the different view of the falls, there is a suspension bridge just on top of the falls..and view is just amazing, you see the water falling just below you, and the force with which the waterfalls is unbelievable , the silent and calm water of the river  gains so much energy . And you just feel like standing there and enjoy the sound of the  water flowing .but as we are yet to see the Quebec City , we left the beautiful place and carried the memories along. 

Montmorency Falls

Downtown is around 20 min from the Montmorency Falls, and so was our  hotel, as this time we had got lucky ,and had found a decent hotel in the heart of the downtown . We stayed at TRYP(it's a new chain of hotels , with  Contemporary interiors )  again quickly freshened up, collected the map , and left to explore the old city, Basically  It is divided in 2 parts, the old city (upper town )and the new downtown (lower town). The city was  founded by a French explorer named  Samuel DE Champlain, in 1608 and is is home to beautiful stone buildings and  winding street , which gives it a distinct European feel. 

The old town was like 20 minutes from our hotel, so we walked toward the old town, and climbed a lot of steps, to get there. We went to the Notre-Dame-des-victoires church,and then to the famous Chateau  Frontenac   (it's a luxury hotel , with an amazing architecture) .

Chateau  Frontenac

 And after  that visited the historic Petit Champlain (named after the founder of Quebec ), This place has a lot of small boutiques,and restaurants with patios, one of the best streets here, just enjoyed the feeling of being there.

We wished to sit outside on a patio and enjoy the evening , but unfortunately the weather was too cold to be outside ( how can we forget that weather is the most unpredictable in Canada,and you should be prepared for the worst , which we were not , and hence went to a restaurant that had seating inside to get some warmth ) it was a local restaurant that served (you know what --varieties of pizzas and Poutine--the French Canadian specialty ) .

It was just 10 pm, but we were immensely tired after the long day, so walked back to our hotel , and I slept like a baby.
I woke up all fresh and excited to explore more. We had our favorite breakfast (omelet) and headed towards the old town. We went to La Citadelle, it was built in 1820, to defend Canada  from the attack by Americans  during American  Revolution . It was never attacked, but it continued to be used by British Garrison and currently  used by the  Canadian military .

Entrance of the Citadelle

We took a guided tour of the  residence of the Governor General of Canada, where they showed us the spectacular  interiors . The theme of the residence was 

Winter, because  of the prominent winters of Canada ( so they had used  fake ice lights) 

and River, because it's on the bank of the St Lawrence River,(so the carpet had waves on it ) 

It exhibits all the artwork ever gifted to the governor general , The waiting area for the dignitaries has a gift given by France to Canada, it's a huge sized book that was made by the French explorer ,  (founder of Quebec ) it has the paintings and maps hand drawn by him, while exploring this beautiful land. ( I was spellbound to see that book , and imagining the life then, without so many luxuries and Google, they were so courageous to get into the unknown and found so many places by taking such long voyages and discovering the new lands , there were pictures of the animals he came across , with some  description as well. I got a feeling that this simple art was so much informative , and would have helped so many people who read his notes then) 

We also saw the beautiful  view from the terrace of the Citadelle, and also caught sight of the distinguished  Firing of Canons, on account of Victoria Day celebration . 

Soldier firing canons

Just besides the Citadelle is the Parliament Building, so  went there and took some great pictures of the remarkable architecture and roamed around a  bit .and started our journey back to Toronto ,

The Parliament Building Of Quebec

Well it's a long  drive back home , around 8-9 hours  and hence here I am writing my memoir of  Quebec City!!
                                                                 Au Revoir !!