Bonjour! Welcome to Quebec City!
It’s the end of May, but surprisingly, we still needed down jackets, gloves and hats to enjoy this old quaint little cobblestone city where French is the predominant language. We arrived very late into Quebec City the first night, so did not have time to do much other than take night photos of the St. Lawrence River, and Fairmount Hotel from Dufferin Terrace. But no worries, because we had 3 full days to fully explore the city.
Day 1: Walk Around Old Quebec
We started our morning with a nice cinnamon croissant, apple tartlet and coffee at the nearby Cafe Maison before heading off to visit the Notre Dame de Quebec (Our Lady of Quebec Basilica, open from 7:30AM-4PM, free). There is a chancel lamp gifted from King Louis XIV as he was king when this church was first built, and there is a holy door, one of the only Holy Doors in the Americas (there are only 8 in the world). This poor “little” church got burnt down twice! Built in 1647, the church was destroyed in 1759 during the British Siege of Quebec in 1759, then rebuilt according to the original plans, but burnt again in 1922 and rebuilt using the old plans.
Afterwards, we walked to Montmorency Park where members of Parliment had met for nearly a century (1792-1883) at the Parliment building that used to be here before it was destroyed by fire. From this park, you can take photos of the Fairmount above and Old Quebec City below, before walking down to Break Neck Steps. Built in 1635, the top of these steps gives you the quintessential picture view of Rue de Petit Champlain, a cute little street with boutiques and the famous Quebec Nougat shop. We got the blueberry nougat which was delicious. I read that all the flavors except lemon were yummy, so you can buy them all if you wish. (By the way, if you don’t want to walk up and down the steep steps, you can always ride the funicular up and down, $4 each way, cash only, but really, the steps were not that long and bad at all, and a great way to work off the calories from the nougats!)
From the top of the steps, we walked down the street to Umbrella Alley. There’s restaurants here but the main attraction is this picture:
From Umbrella Alley, continue walking down to Place Royale, a cobblestone square with a 17th Century stone church which was built one year after the Notre dame basilica, but can claim to be the oldest church in Quebec by a technicality (it didn’t get burned down and rebuilt). The church was closed when we visited (sign said not open on weekends), so we continued walking to see the Quebec City Mural, which was inaugurated in 1999 and tells the story of the history of Quebec City. Be prepared to wait your turn for a picture, as there were lots and lots of groups of school kids on a field trip. You can even listen into the teacher if you speak French!
Afterwards, we wanted to eat lunch at Bistro Sous le Forte, because they had the best French onion soup, but they closed shop after decades in business. So we walked over to L’Antquaire Buffet for a French Canadian lunch of meat pies and French onion soup. This was more of a local joint and we enjoyed our meal, although the Quebec meat pie was not what I thought it would be. It tasted like Thanksgiving/Christmas with all the nutmeg and cinnamon and cloves, if that makes any sense. After lunch, due to the rain, we ducted into the museum of civilization which was not on my itinerary, but, yeah, the dang rain! It was the worse $48 I ever spent. The museum had only two exhibits, one about the indigenous people of Quebec and the other a tiny science display of how one uses inspiration from nature to design airplanes, submarines, etc. It took maybe 1 hour to finish viewing everything. I even asked the information desk if I missed anything in the museum because I couldn’t believe they could charge $24 for these 2 small displays. But yep, only these 2 things…so I don’t understand all the positive reviews for this museum. Well, it kept us dry for an hour, so I guess that’s worth something…
Afterwards we went towards the port. There’s nothing really to see here except the hubby wanted to use a bank ATM here to get Canadian cash since it’s safer than going to just any old ATM machine on the street. Ok…. Well, it was inside a petro station, so at least I was able to pick up a bag of ketchup potato chips, a box of Passion Flakies, and a few bars of coffee crisps, so I was happy. And afterwards, on the walk back to our loft, we stopped off for beaver tails. These are fried flat pieces of dough smothered in either chocolate, Nutella, peanut butter etc and the topped with candy, Oreos, brownie bits or whatever flavors you choose. Super bad for you, but so so yummy! We had these when we were in Banff, so when we saw the same iconic shop here, we had to get one. Unfortunately, the ones at this Quebec location was not great. The dough wasn’t freshly fried and was quite thin. Definitely not as good as the ones in Banff, so if this is your ONLY chance to get beaver tails, go for it. But if you will head to other Canadian cities later, I’d hold off.
We ended the day with dinner at the nearby Chic Shack in old Quebec which has iconic brioche bun burgers, homemade sodas, and poutines. It was our first poutine on this Canadian trip, and it came decked out with a pulled beef topping along with the usual cheese curd and gravy.
Day 2: Forts, Battle Grounds and Government
Today we are headed to the Citadel. To get there, we walked along the Dufferin terrace, a wide boardwalk with intricate wrought iron guardrails and a panoramic view of the St Lawrence river. It’s named after Lord Dufferin who was governor of New France from 1872-1878. There’s beautiful views of the Fairmount from the terrace, and at the start of the terrace walk is the famous Monument Samuel De Champlain to honor the French explorer and founder of Quebec City. And at the end you will find wooden toboggans that would run in the winter time.
Since our tour for the citadel was not til 11AM, we walked around to take pictures of St. Louis Gates. Here you will also find a statue of Roosevelt and Churchill as the two met here at the citadel during WWII in a highly secretive conference to plan the Battle of Normandy, the allied operation to invade Germany occupied Western Europe.
We walked inside to the Citadel museum where we showed our booked online tickets for the Citadel tour ($18 per person). The citadel is an active military base, so to visit, you need to book a tour. It’s a 1 hour outdoor tour where we got to enter the citadel, walk through tunnels to the old shooting galleries, see armored vehicles, and they tell you a bit about the history. Normally in the summer, there is also a changing of the guards that you can watch at 10AM, but we came in May, so no changing of the guards. I guess it’s too cold. It actually snowed during our tour. Yes, SNOW in May! Crazy! They did fire off a cannon at noon, which was super loud! After the tour, we spent another hour walking through the museum and reading about the history and role that the citadel’s regiment 22 played in the various wars. It’s pretty interesting and had both French and English which was nice for us non French speakers.
Afterwards, we walked over to the Parliament Building. They offer free tours, but the timing wasn’t right, so we just picked up their booklet and did the self guided tour. It’s pretty interesting to learn about the differences between the Canadian government vs US government (they have a House of Lords where their Senate is appointed by the governor general on advice of the prime minister, and they get to serve for LIFE!) The architecture is also pretty neat with beautiful stained glass made by Quebec studio maison Gauthier et Freses 1918, and there’s a modern art walk way that changes colors as you walk through. You do need to bring your passport, and there is security check.
Outside of Parliament there is the Fountain of Tourny, and a 0 Km mark, so we took our obligatory photos there, then walked to the Plains of Abraham (huge battlefield where the New France lost to the British) and the Joan of Arc Park before ending the day with a nice dinner at Ciel Bistro Bar.
Day 3: Montmorency Falls and A Ferry Ride
On this third morning, we purchased an all day fare on the RTC real time nomade app (all day unlimited rides $9, and you just show them the QR code on the phone, otherwise you can just also pay exact change when you get on the bus, $3.50 each way), and rode the 800 bus to Montmorency Falls. It’s about a 45 min bus ride. We did have a bit of trouble finding the bus stop as there was a lot of road construction, so the bus lines were re-routed. But the falls was beautiful once we got there. Entrance fee is $7.57 pp, and you can walk up stairs and cross a suspension bridge to see this 272ft water fall from various angles.
Afterwards, we took the bus back and rode the ferry across the St. Lawrence River over to Levis for lunch at a microbrewery and rode the ferry back. Round trip cost is only $7pp so it’s the poor man’s version of a River cruise on the St Lawrence. 😂 There were not too many restaurant choices in Levi’s without a car, so we went to a microbrewery and had a roasted lettuce soup—that was unique and pretty tasty. The smoked meat sandwiches were just OK, but was presented on a snowboard plate which was cool.
To end the day, we took the bus to “lampshade alley”. There are 34 giant lampshades installed on Cartier Avenue and they light up at night. It was cool to see. Plus there are lots of shops and restaurants on the street too. We got a blitz (blended ice cream, and sat outside to people watch for a bit) and then went back to our loft to pack.
Au revoir Quebec! It was fun!
