Quebec City - Admiring Grande Allée

Friday, May 15, 2009

A WALK - PART 1
Beyond the city walls

Click on map to enlarge

(Arrows show where we're taxiing to;
then we're walking back)

The plan for the day was to venture beyond the city walls to a paper store. We asked at the hotel about taking a bus but the man there told us would be complicated so best to just take a cab. It would be a pleasant walk back through a nice neighbourhood, he said, adding that it would be about a three quarter hour walk. We would stretch that out into hours. We had a vague idea of the area from the bus tour the day before. The store, Les Petits Papiers, is on Avenue Cartier between Grande Allee and Boulevard Rene-Levesque, just inland from the Plains of Abraham.

I had fun spending money there. Glenn bought orange plastic cutlery in another store.

In this part of town I noticed that English was not spoken as much as in the main tourist zone. On this warm, sunny day we sat outside at a cafe with our juice and snacks, people-watching and enjoying the sunshine. I had to go back into the cafeteria and ask for forks. I didn't know the French word for fork (forgot my little French/English book) but the lady behind me in the lineup immediately came to my rescue and translated. That was as bad as it got with the language issue.

We did a fair bit of walking around this area - along Boulevard Rene-Levesque, onto the 'grand' Grande Allee and into part of the Plains of Abraham.

Above: Photos taken on Avenue Cartier. The price of gas in the lower left photo is 98.9¢ a litre - cheaper than ours.

Another Cochon Dingue restaurant is here.

There were a couple of odd sights on side streets. The statue looked as though it was plunked in the only available space between the house and sidewalk, as if waiting for a permanent home.

The historic "Maison Henry-Stuart" is one of the few remaining Anglo-Norman cottages in Quebec City. At one time it was considered to be at the border of the city and country.

Metal sculptures.

Lovely architecture along Grande Allee. Photo with the gold dome shows the Symphony Orchestra building.

Joan of Arc statue. We veered off briefly to the edge of the Plains of Abraham. The Joan of Arc Garden there sits on top of a huge underground drinking-water reservoir.

It is a functioning parking metre but where did they dig up such an out-of-place relic? Maybe it's a faux finish to give that special weathered patina. (People get to park for 5 hours at these meters?!)

Now we come to ... "a church," you may be thinking. But actually we went in to see an art show.

General Montcalm statue. Montcalm was defeated on the Plains of Abraham and died in 1759.

On Grande Allee are many, many, many restaurants. I wondered how many weeks or months it would take to try each one on this street.

I believe this is the Quebec City Armoury that was mostly destroyed by fire.