Cloud 9: Quebec City – Along the boardwalk

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

A walk outside the Chateau Frontenac and along the boardwalk towards the Plains of Abraham

Even though Quebec City tops my list of favourite places in Canada (along with the Rockies), I am still ignorant of its history and layout, and feel that we only got to see a tiny bit of the city. I hope the information written here is correct.

Every time I turned around there was something I liked, so it was hard to know where to begin. This is our first day to go exploring and we'll start on foot from our hotel.

Quebec City is the capital of the province of Quebec. We are in the old part of the city, Vieux Quebec, which is more-or-less the area within the walls, and we are in the upper town on the plateau of Cap Diamant. I read that the first wall was built of wood and earth in 1693 to keep the Iroquois out. In the 1800's some of the city's merchants wanted the walls taken down but luckily the Governor General at the time opposed the idea.

Speaking of Cap Diamant, explorer Jacques Cartier thought the glittering stones in the cliffs were diamonds but it turned out they were quartz.

Below: We begin with breakfast. To avoid the Frontenac's high prices, we go in search of another restaurant (for about two minutes) and are lured by this eye-catching red roof just across from the side of our hotel. The restaurant is probably a place for tourists but it is only for breakfast. It so happens that my sister had dinner at this same restaurant when she visited in December. We cross Place d'Armes, a former military parade ground, where "Monument de la Foi", Monument of Faith I guess, recognizes the first missionaries.

Glenn's bacon & eggs and my crepes. I think something got lost in translation because I thought I was getting fruit filled crepes as was shown on the menu.

Now we head down the street with its interesting buildings. Walking takes a bit of getting used to after sitting on the train for four days. Good thing we're wearing comfortable walking shoes.

Closer to the river is the statue of Champlain we saw from our hotel window.

Behind the Frontenac next to the top of the funicular are these excavations.

Now we come to the Terrasse Dufferin boardwalk, which is about 670 meters long and nice to walk on. As you can see, we have a wonderfully sunny day for it. We will walk up that hill at the end, which doesn't look very steep from here. At first we thought that metal chute was a funicular being built but I think it is used for sledding in the wintertime. They have attractive kiosks along the way, which were there before the Frontenac was built. I don't know what the names are for.

We spotted a hotel - there must be something about red roofs - just down from the Frontenac so we went in to check it out. The man there didn't speak much English and I speak even less French, but he was very pleasant and we understood each other just fine. A room here is much, much cheaper than the Frontenac and still has a great river view. One wasn't available for viewing until after noon, however, so we said we'd come back.