Bienvenue à Québec !

7-20-13

Bienvenue à Québec !

We flew Air Canada from Seattle to Toronto before connecting to Québec City. One of my favorite things of traveling internationally is all of the announcements done in various languages. Of course, us traveling to French Canada, they were done in English first and then French on our way to Toronto. However, once aboard the small prop express plane (only 18 rows !), announcements were in French first followed by English. By Canadian law, all things under federal supervision (inter-province highways, airports, government buildings) must use both languages. However, locally, the provincial language is used without need for both, and in the case of Québec, this means français !

Our small 20-row propeller plane from Toronto to Quebec

While we were greeted by disgustingly humid 90-degree weather in Toronto, in Québec City we were treated to disgustingly humid 85-degree weather PLUS torrential downpour due to storms blowing into the area. We took a taxi from the airport since there were pretty much no other viable transit options, and chatted with our Tunisian driver. I’ve always found standard French pretty easy to understand, and the pronunciation is used by pretty much all francophones around the world … except for in Québec. The Québecois accent takes so much effort for me to understand ! After day two here, I’m actually feeling quite at ease and sometimes catching myself pronouncing things the Québecois way rather than in standard French.

We arrived at Maison Lafleur, a cute little auberge in the middle of the old town. Cobblestone streets, stone buildings from the 1800s with colorful windowsills and doors – I felt like we were in Europe. 

After dropping our bags off with Gilles, we stepped outside to be absolutely drenched by a violent downpour. My socks were soaked in an instant, there was quite literally a river of water running down the street, and we couldn’t find a decent place to duck into. Oh well, our spirits weren’t extinguished that easily ! 

We easily spent the whole afternoon walking around the upper and lower towns, separated by a huge cliff that the city is built on. We also walked all along the walls that fortified the old town on the hill with hundreds of cannons pointed out to the Saint-Laurent river, and worked out our quads climbing up and down all the stairs leading up to haute-ville and down to basse-ville.

Of course, we had to drop by the Château Frontenac, formerly one of the grand Canadian railway hotels, and now a Fairmont property. What a view from the Promenade des Gouverneurs. 

Dinner was near Les Escaliers Casse-Cou (the Breakneck Stairs) – so named for their steepness. It was in a touristy spot with pricier but mediocre food, but Ian and I just wanted to enjoy dining outside on the terrace while people watching so in that sense it was a wonderful dinner J

Les Escaliers Casse-Cou (the breakneck stairs)

Basse-Ville (lower town)

Place Royale 

Falling Ice!

Following dinner, we headed to the Agora at the Vieux-Port to see the FREE Cirque du Soleil show that happens every night in the summer at 9 :30pm. We ended up getting a front-row spot ! I wasn’t expecting a long or extensive show considering it was completely free and people pay over $100 per ticket to see this show elsewhere, but it ended up being an hour long with some incredible stuff ! I loved the music, the troupe made everything seem so effortless, and I loved it that much more knowing we were seeing Cirque du Soleil in its birthplace – and with the Château Frontenac as a backdrop. 

My friend the hot security guard

So effortless 

I couldn’t have imagined a cooler setting. As if the evening couldn’t get any better, we then climbed back up the hill to sit on the wall surrounding the old town to watch the Moulin à Images, an hommage to one of the first great animated film makers (back when you actually had to manipulate the film itself) which was projected onto the old silo building. 

By day, the silo looks like this:

And by night:

Finally, we called it a night !

This morning, Gilles made us crêpes for breakfast with fresh squeezed orange juice, local raspberries from the Île d’Orléans (an island just up the Saint Laurent river from Québec City), delicious chunky applesauce, and Nepalese black tea from Davids Tea (a Montréal company). 

We set out wandering the other neighborhoods that we didn’t cover yesterday … today’s areas were definitely more ‘local’ and out of the tourist area, although much of this small city’s industry is related to tourism nowadays. It’s incredible to think that this city was fought over by French, British, AND American militaries to control the Saint Laurent river and gain lucrative access to the well-established fur trade based out of here. Québec City recently celebrated its 400th birthday.

 "Go ahead, jump! In all honesty the world is crying ..."

We found a great tea house called Camilia Sinensis (the latin name for the tea plant), and sipped at cups of Bai Hao and 1992 Menghai pu erh while the rain came down hard outside. They had a great tea selection, wonderful staff, and a peaceful environment to spend the afternoon leisurely reading. Considering how many types of tea I have at home, and how much I drink it every day, I sometimes forget that to most people, « Tea » means a Lipton tea bag. A Boston couple was enjoying exploring all the different kinds of tea there are in this world, and ended up buying so many different kinds and even planning when they would come back to this shop again in November.

High on tea and seeing a break in the rain (when it isn’t absolutely pouring its blazing hot and humid !), we walked over to the Marché at the Vieux-Port. Inside, we browsed stalls of local Quebec produce, much of which came from the Île d’Orléans. 

Our lunch at the market, quiche aux champignons 

I likened it to Vashon Island back home in Seattle where many of the great local farms are located. Local tiny strawberries were everywhere, as was maple syrup (of course). Finally we decided on a Quiche aux Champignons to share with a cup of raspberries. Ian even met his market-stall boyfriend at the nuts stand :-p

With the sun still shining we hopped on the ferry to Lévis … the sleepy little village on the other side of the Saint-Laurent river, just across from Québec. 

My good friend and former French professor L. (who teaches at the Université Laval here in Québec during the summer) said there was not too much over there but there was a well-known ice cream shop. Well, of course we had to find it ! And of course, this being Québec, we had to climb quite a bit of stairs in the blazing hot sun and sweat-inducing humidity to get to it ! After many taste tests we settled on a Sorbet aux citrons et aux poires (lemon and pear sorbet) and a cappucino glacée (I thought from the name this would just be an iced cappucino, but it was actually a cappucino with soft-serve ice cream on top ! Delicious soft serve…). 

With our blood sugar back up to an acceptable level, we climbed out onto the Terasse de Lévis for a panoramic view of the gorgeous city before hopping back on the ferry just in time for another MASSIVE downpour ! 

Of course, when we got off the ferry it was back to blazing hot sunshine to make things even more humid >_<

On the way back home, we ducked into a cute little home-goods/kitchen store in a small alley of the lower town and I got Ian a little surprise … he’ll have to wait and see what it is but I know he’ll like it :-p

Tomorrow afternoon, we’re off to the beautiful train station to hop on the VIA rail to Montréal where we’ll meet up with Kim and Megan!