MONTREAL, QUEBEC, CANADA

It is hard to believe our week was over and we would be leaving the ship for the last time. Overnight we slowly traveled the 136 miles from Quebec City to Montreal. There were times right after we left that we realized we had stopped. We traveled 1635 miles from Boston to Montreal. There were days I felt like we were walking that far. The high temperature had probably averaged between 80 and 82 degrees but the humidity, which we were not expecting, made it feel much warmer than that. A common comment we heard from the "locals" was, "This is the hottest days we have had all summer." I'm not sure what I expected to see but I wasn't expecting all of the beautiful flowers in hanging baskets and window boxes and planters on the streets. Oh yeah, and down the middle of some major city streets. Everywhere we saw nothing but green, no dead places in peoples' yards like we saw when we got back home, but the only rain we had was in Boston when we first arrived and then Bar Harbor, Maine once we started the cruise. My husband and I love history and we saw so many interesting historical places and as always, we learned a lot we didn't know.

But as I said when I started this post, Saturday, July 29 found us docked in Montreal and unsure of what our day would bring.

Last views from the ship...

The first thing we did ashore was stand in a line to get a taxi to go to our hotel. We couldn't check in until 3:00 that afternoon but we knew we could at least leave our luggage and not have to pay. (You can leave your luggage at the terminal for the day but they charge you $5/a bag.)

We had reservations to stay at Hotel de Paris, a Victorian Mansion that had been converted into an European style hotel. (I didn't take a picture of the front so that you could see the steep steps from the sidewalk up to the front door. They were killers with my heavy suitcase.) My husband found the hotel online and chose it because it was near(about two or three blocks away) Sherbrooke Metro Station where we would board the Greyhound Bus the next morning that would take us to White River Junction, Vermont to visit with my Uncle Sam and Aunt Eleanor. 

 More pretty flowers and even a little water feature in front of the hotel. Actually if you look closely on the right side of the picture above the fence, you can see the steep steps I was talking about.

  
After leaving our luggage inside, we decided the first thing we should do was do a practice run to the bus station so we wouldn't miss the bus the next morning. So glad we did because while it wasn't far away, the first time we failed to go one more block and didn't see it. There were no signs up pointing the way. We walked back to our hotel and got further directions and headed out again. Needless to say, we had no difficulty the next morning and got there in line before most of the passengers. We didn't have any idea how many passengers there would be and we wanted to make sure we got a seat.

That taken care of we were off to the historic area of the city, Old Montreal. Since we were at the Metro station, we decided to take the Metro down to Old Montreal. I should say another good thing about our hotel is that we were near to a lot of things...Old Montreal being one of them. The problem (?) Montreal is hilly and it was far enough way that I didn't feel like walking. After getting off the subway, we had a hill to climb to get to our destination. The last building you can see in the distant center is the Notre-Dame Bascilica with beautiful Gothic-Revival architecture. (You can read the history of the church HERE.)

I do not have a magnificent picture of the whole cathedral. There were so many people. The people in front of the cathedral are in line to go in... The next guided tour was going to be at 1:00 which was about an hour away. We could have gone back and gone in one of the other doors (without having to wait in the long line again) as your ticket was good to come-and-go the whole day, but we didn't . It probably would have been nice.

The view from the front of the cathedral...

The inside was beautiful but such a change from all of the other cathedrals/churches we had been in - guess that was the gothic revivial architecture. So dark...

The sermon is given from this place which is about half way down from the front...

Coming out of the cathedral, we looked down one of the side streets beside it ...

But we chose a busier street to look for a place to eat lunch... we ended up at the darker building in the center of the picture... Tutti Frutti

and we enjoyed a most delicious, filling breakfast. I had to take a picture of "Grandad's" chocolate chip pancakes to send to our CO grandchildren. Grandson Henry's response? "WHOA". They cook them in a ring so they were at least an inch thick...

Another side street at the cathedral...The most people we had experienced anywhere we had been on the trip...

Another one of those flower urns we often saw...

I had to take a picture of what the McDonald's looked like in Montreal... No golden arches...

Looked different inside also...this is how you ordered your food. While it was all in French, they did have an "English" option but it was hard to find. When I couldn't find ice tea on the menu, I told the lady at the kiosk next to us she could just use ours since she couldn't find the English option on her screen. (I was really looking forward to a giant ice tea.)

By this time we were ready to go back to our hotel. There were just so many people in the city that day and we honestly didn't enjoy it as much as our other stops. Maybe also because Montreal is Canada's second largest city behind Toronto and very metropolitan and it was the weekend. 

We timed it perfectly as it was 3:00 when we got back to the Hotel de Paris. Climbing those steep stairs to check in, we were told that we were actually staying in their annex across the street. At first I was really disappointed because the hotel was so historic looking...

Our room was the one on the right side of the front door with the big window that was partly hidden by the big tree...NO STEPS except for three up to the front door...😊

BUT I think we got the better deal...our room was really nice and big...(some reviews of the hotel said the rooms were small)

We rested a while, watched a little golf on TV (not sure how my husband managed the whole time we were gone), and yes, probably even snoozed a little. When it was time to think about dinner (although we weren't real hungry after that awesome breakfast and all the fruit we had at Tutti Frutti), we walked across the street to see what the restaurant that was kinda cut out of the hotel but with an outside entrance had to offer. That is where we would eat our complimentary breakfast the next morning. Turns out in the evening they serve traditional Thai food.

The receptionist at the front desk told us we could walk a "few" blocks to the Rue St Denis where there were plenty of places to eat. I am sorry I didn't try to take a picture of this street. You can see more HERE. This was definitely "the happening place".  At least on the end we came onto, there were so many people and restaurants you weren't sure where to enter some of them as they were on top of each, beside each other, etc. We figured if you couldn't find a place to eat, you were too picky. That almost descibed me...I was tired and I am a picky eater and at one point I told my husband that I was absolutely worthless. That he needed to find someone else to go eat with. Finally we chose a place (I saw pizza on the menu board outside) - I don't even know for sure what the name of the place was because there were a number of restaurants there. We ate outside in front (There was also eating outside in the back but that may have been a different restaurant.) I think the bar inside may have served several different restaurants as you got a separate bill from them. 

We had heard of a popular Canadian meal, Poutine, in Quebec City but didn't see it on any menus. My husband saw it here, but it also included chicken. He decided to get it. It was pulled chicken with cheese curds over French fries topped with brown gravy. It actually wasn't bad. I found this entertaining and informative blog post describing it. I might have ordered it had I known about it, but I sorta focused in on the pizza. Interesting thing when they brought my individual-size pizza which was a little larger than what we get here for an individual size pizza, it wasn't cut and I also had lots of French fries. 

The weather started looking a little threatening as we finished and we decided we should head back to our room as we were walking, of course.  We didn't get too far before we felt the sprinkles and then managed to find this cover as the downpour came...

We ended up sharing it with two other couples and didn't get too wet...

When we got back to our room we discovered we had no electricity. We stood around outside for a little bit with other guests and then decided to call it an evening. It had been a long tiring day. I think my husband slept through it, but when the power came back on around 11:30, I got up and turned the lights all off and went back to sleep.

The restaurant served a delightful continental breakfast the next morning and then we were off walking to the bus station. 

Here are a few pictures I took on our way out of town...

Looks like they at least kept the church tower...

We had no idea what experiences our day would bring when we got to the US/Canada border, but you can read that earlier post HERE. (I started this travelogue with the end of our trip instead of the beginning.) See other posts:  Bar Harbor, Maine   Halifax, Nova Scotia   Sydney, Nova Scotia   Prince Edward Island   Quebec City, Quebec


By the time we got back to Kansas City we had been gone 15 days, saw a lot of history and beautiful places we had never seen before, walked a gazillion miles, taken just about every means of transportation available from an airplane, subways, ferries, water taxis, city buses, commuter buses, motor coaches, trolleys, a tender, automobiles,(I think that's all of them), and visited with family. It is a trip we won't likely forget. I hope you have enjoyed my travelogue as much as I have enjoyed sharing it. (I do have to admit, I am glad I am finished though as it takes a long time for me to write each post, but it is an excellent way to store all my pictures. I'm sure our sons are thankful.😉)

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.)

Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica-Cathedral (1647)

 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