Quebec City

QUEBEC CITY 

Day 3 of 9
Sunday, June 30, 2019

71 degrees, sunny

****I have been journalling almost all of my travels since graduating college in 2003.  In 2019, I decided to make them digital! I'm happy to share our adventures with you, but keep in mind they are actually for me and my family!****

This sums it up for me, "Let yourself be charmed by its small streets and historic buildings. Enjoy its many cultural activities and varied restaurants. A little air of Europe in North America!"

760 Rue Honore- Mercier

A beautiful chill in the morning air and our accommodations allowed us to sleep MUCH BETTER than in Niagara the evening before.  

• Maybe it was the 9-hour drive that turned into 13 hours?  
• Maybe the brisk cold air - we are just north of Maine!
• Maybe the air conditioner that doesn't rattle like a tambourine every 15 minutes like the Niagara hotel
• The fluffy new pillows? (Dylan even tossed his pillow aside from home to use these! And we bought some as soon from Ikea as we returned home from the trip!)
• Dylan's new fondness with reading because of his night light?  "If I had a lamp like this at home, I would read every night" (and so we added this to our Ikea trip too!)

Coffee, a good night's sleep and a good book on vacation.  What more could you ask for?  Yep.  A beautiful view of Quebec City.  We took it "easy like Sunday morning" today with just a few things on our agenda that start at 10am so we have plenty of time.

Fortifications of Quebec National Historic Site of Canada

We started our morning with a short walk to arrive for a fun tour of "If the Walls could talk" for Dylan.  He was suited up by the Canadian Park Ranger with a magical sword, an iPad and a few directions to allow him to start a scavenger hunt complete with people, spies and a walk along the fortified walls of the city.  The sword allowed the iPad to track his steps and give clues with videos along the way for exploring history.  We all enjoyed this hour-long tour and would totally do it again!  Its a great way for the adults to see the fortified walls and a great way to keep kids engaged.  Dylan even received a prize at the end!  The dog tag lanyards are genius gifts for these kids!

The museum about the fortified walls was very fun too!  Period costumes for photos, wooden guns, sneak attacks on spies (like Dad) and a newly opened barracks to explore this Canadian history.  There are replicas of the original city, movies about the history of Quebec City and artifacts to explore at the lower level.

At $12 Canadian dollars for the four of us - this was awesome!  Kids are always free!

Au Petit Coin Breton Creperie

All this walking made us hungry for crepes!  Of course, I did days and days of research about Quebec and we found one of the creperies that Quebec is known for.  Au Petit Coin Breton did not disappoint with their fruity and savory crepes and fresh lemonade for Dylan and sangria for me.  Mom and I split a ham, asparagus, and swiss crepe as well as a smoked salmon salad.  Dylan had a custard and strawberry crepe and Paris had a ham, asparagus, and bechamel crepe.  Yummy!  Lattes and cappuccinos were shared as well.

A little shopping in the streets before retreating to Le 760, Avenue Honoré-Mercier for naps. On our way back, we saw a performance from the Society des Chinels - not sure what we watched but those guys were pretty hot (as in sweaty) in those costumes!


Ahh- these beds are awesome for naps!  We sat in the sun and read our books while Dylan did most of the napping.  Paris took an unintentional nap with Dylan because when this boy wants to snuggle - you snuggle!  Grandma soon followed the lead with a nap of her own and I was super happy to sit in the sun with my book.  I had jeans on with the balmy 68 degrees but this balcony had minimal wind and maximum sun so I needed some shorts.  I didn't want to wake the boys by going into the room where they were napping so naturally, I just slipped those sun prohibiting pants off (no picture of this , ha-ha) and voila - sunshine on the legs achieved.  When Paris awoke from his nap and joined me on the patio, he didn't even notice that I had no pants on :)

Round Two of our afternoon took us on a self-guided walking tour using our map.  We went down Rue St. Jean and up Rue de Claire-Fontaine some 300 steps up the street, no sidewalk, steps.  Yes it was like being back in San Fransisco with those hilly streets!  We somehow landed exactly where we wanted to be, in the Plains of Abraham.  

Our plan was to go up to the observatory today but our naps interfered with that, given that it closes at 5pm and that's when we woke up!  

Plains d' Abraham

Huge shout out to my patient, Toby, for recommending that we take a frisbee with us!  The frisbee tricks that we accomplished made the Plains much more enjoyable for Dylan!  Plus, who can't build some confidence when that wrist flick produces the coolest tricks without even trying!  We played frisbee through the park, to the old fort, around the steep hills along the St. Lawrence River.  We (as in Dylan) did log rolls down the steep hills and we followed the winding trails toward the Parliament building where we could see the stages being built for the rock concert.  

The Rock concert was apparently 5 day, 10 stages and only $100 to see 50 bands play.  We didn't recognize many of the bands but it would be fun to do it again upon a return one day. 

Parliament

Photoshoots all around this beautiful building!  We walked up to the sides and around to the front of this magnificent building with the bronze statues rising several stories up.  The life-sized bronzed statues are so ornate and line 4 stories high in the stone cut-outs between the windows.  They also line the walkway around the building.  

The new visitor center just opened two months ago in April.  Little did we know that it had been closed for two years and we would be the lucky recipients of the beautifully curved glass entrance below the Parliament.  They did an amazing job blending the glass and modern update into the existing Parliament building.

Intermarche

We picked up some dinner items for our charcuterie board at this extremely reasonable market with a wide variety of foods.  It reminds me of a Trader Joe's.  Cheeses and Triscuits combined with meats, dried fruits, and some veggies and hummus.  Of course, we ate back at the condo while playing a fun game of Monopoly Deal.


We can't forget about the Jos Louis that I've heard so much about!  My mind told me that these would be the size of Oreos with tiny sponge cakes and a package of 12.  Instead, to Dylan's delight, it was like a huge moon pie like the Little Debbie snacks.  Paris and I split one while Dylan devoured his own!  I wasn't overly impressed but the red velvet sponge cake, creme, and chocolate were pretty good.  - these Canadians need to try a swiss roll!

We ended our evening with a family game of Monopoly deal - naturally.  And showers, which resulted in a mishap with the showerhead blasting me in the face when I wasn't expecting to wash my hair.  THAT. DAMN. SHOWERHEAD.  It looked so fancy and was so awesome before the water pressure made you try and catch a garden hose gone wild.

Thank you, Next. (Arianna Grande reference)

Tomorrow is our last day in Quebec