Thursday, August 23, 2018

QUEBEC CITY, QUEBEC

After our day "at sea", we docked in Quebec City. Since we left Boston on Saturday, July 21, we had traveled almost 1500 miles. 

Here are a few pictures of the city from our ship...(You can see the hill that Old Quebec City is located on.)


I didn't take a picture of this place when we returned to the ship, but it was crowded with people of all ages enjoying the food and the water.

Looked like they were setting up for a performance ...

When we were out on the deck looking at the city, we met a young girl who was in the process of moving back to this part of Canada after living in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada for several years. She told us about taking the Metrobus 800 to get to Montmorency Falls. It looked like there would a group of us heading (walking) to the Gare du Palais at the Information Desk onshore, but they were taking a while to "gather" so we decided to head on out without them. (We did finally run into them as we were leaving the falls. I think they hadn't been very long.

Our first views of the Lower City on our way to the bus terminal...

Old Quebec City is on a "hill". The buildings in the background are in the Old City...(I have a picture later that shows the back of houses from up there.)

We saw these "living" urns several different times while in Canada. This one was especially spectacular.

It took us a while to find where to catch the Metrobus 800 that would take us to the falls. Language was a little bit of an issue, but after we got on the bus, we realized a young couple sitting across from us spoke English and were apparently going to the falls also. So we "latched" onto to them to make sure we got off at the right place. (As it turns out it was the last stop on the "line", but we enjoyed talking to them and getting to know them.) They were on their honeymoon and were living in Los Angeles after a move from Chicago. 

Montmorency Falls is one and a half times taller than Niagara Falls. There are a variety of ways to enjoy the falls...a bridge goes above it at the top, there are also two different zip lines, cable cars, and steps down to the base of it. We walked across the bridge and down a few steps to get a particular picture. (It would have been interesting to see the falls from the highway below, but we didn't want to do all of the stairs and our bus stop was at the top.)

Views from the bridge...



Looking down over the railing of the bridge...

My husband isn't fond of heights and he decided to act silly...

The stairs down to the base of the falls...

This view was off the bridge but walking around to the stairs...

I took this picture because I thought it was interesting that with all that water around us, the park employees were watching the trees and plants from big bottles of water they had brought in. The beginning of one of the zip lines is also shown...




Here you can see the bridge we walked across...the small green roofed structure is the end of one of the zip lines. 



Back on the Metrobus...


Street performers were a common site. They sign up for a period of time (I think 30 minutes) and it was posted on a board. I am sure people have favorites they come see.

The hill we had to climb after getting off the bus - heading for Old Quebec City...

More beautiful flowers down the middle of the street...

The wall around Old Quebec City...

There is definite difference in architecture in the Old City and "new"...

Finally the fountain and a left turn into the Old City...




Where we ate lunch...


Chateau Frontenac can be seen in the background...(I didn't take any pictures in the hotel lobby/first floor, I think because all I did was walk around with my mouth wide open in amazement. Words escape me in trying to describe it. The closest similar place might be the casinos in Las Vegas with all of its grandeur.)








 Francois de Laval, burial site, was the first bishop of Quebec and was canonized by Pope Francis in 2014.


I loved the use of the color with the trim in these buildings along this street.

 This is the wall around the Old City on the hill. You can see our cruise ship if you look closely...

Fascinating view looking down over the wall at the back of the apartments down in Lower Town ...

Place Royale (this is a cool site to see this area and other ones near by) the town marketplace, considered the birthplace of French America. (I didn't take a 360 of the square. Imagine the church is behind me though. On the left, not pictured, is a coffee shop with outdoor seating and a boutique Expression. We sat on a window ledge at the boutique to rest while my husband drank a coffee and ate a myuffin and when I scooted down because I was so tired, my cell phone came out of my back hip pocket - unbeknownst to me. I didn't realize the phone was missing until we were at the ship ready to board. We quickly walked back to the Place Royale to see if we could find my phone. My husband checked out the coffee shop and I went in the boutique. I walked up to the counter and the salesclerk looked up at me with my phone in her hand and said, "I have your cell phone."  I couldn't believe it. She told me she had sent texts to my contacts saying she had the phone with her phone number if anyone knew how to get in touch with me. Don't tell me miracles don't happen! I wish I knew who to thank for turning it in when they found it. Exhausted as I was, we walked once again back to the ship with my phone and stateroom key to rest an hour before we had to go to dinner. What a story I had to tell Bernice and Richard that night at dinner! 

 Notre-Dame des Victoires, the oldest stone church in North America built in 1688...



Everyone had to be back on the ship early because the ship had to leave by a certain time to get under this bridge leaving Quebec City enroute to Montreal because of the tide.



We made it! Yay!

I know this has been a  l-o-n-g  post but as I said at the beginning, we loved Quebec City and I had so many pictures to share.

See other posts from our cruise: 

Bar Harbor, Maine    Halifax, Nova Scotia   Sydney, Nova Scotia    Prince Edward Island

2 comments:

  1. Oh, Patricia, what a wonderful city! Your pictures are just beautiful! Thank you so much for sharing your adventures - and I'm so glad you got your phone back! It's almost like losing your purse! I am enjoying your trip almost as much as you did - but not quite as much, I'm sure! I started looking up cruises to Prince Edward Island - you have inspired me! This sounds like a great cruise. And by the way, you look beautiful in your pictures!

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  2. Thanks Joansy. I was telling my husband that so many people take the cruise in October to see the fall colors. I am sure they are beautiful, but then that means that everyone misses all the beautiful flowers and it is also a lot cooler then, too. They do really decorate with them. We originally had wanted to go in the fall, but the price of the cruises is 3 times more. We asked ourselves - were we going to Canada and places we had never been or were we going for the color. We have beautiful fall colors here and last November we were in Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains and it was just breathtaking. We thought we would be past the peak, but with the climate change, the first week in November was still beautiful. We are already talking about going back but driving so we can have more time to see things. Patricia

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