Day 1

June 22, 2015

After spending a week in Canada’s “city of lights”, Quebec City, in November 2014, we decided to go back this year as our destination 40th anniversary trip.

We loved the hotel we stayed in last November so booked in again at The Grande-Allée Hotel and Suites. Upon check-in, we discovered that our room was next to the one we stayed in last year. The only drawback to this room was the fact that access to the heating/air-conditioning system was in our foyer.

The restored brick wall adds a charming rustic look to the room and the electric fireplace makes for a romantic mood-setter. We even had an ice bucket and wine glasses on the mantle!

The room behind the mirrored French door to the left was our bathroom. The solid door was the access to the heating/air-conditioning system. Thankfully, everything worked as it should so no workman needed access through our hotel room.

Once we were settled, the beverages in the fridge (cleverly hidden in the wardrobe) except for one bottle of champagne which we popped the cork on and toasted our 40 years, we set out across the Plains of Abraham to the boardwalk that leads to the promenade below at the Chateau Frontenac.

To the naked eye, the lighting was perfect to see the bridge from the mainland to Île d’Orléans and make out the distances of the various mountains in the distance. Unfortunately, the camera doesn’t do the scene justice.

Believe it or not, even from its prominent location, there are places in the city where you don’t see the Chateau Frontenac. Our hotel was on the same street (it changed names from Grande Allée to rue Saint-Louis inside the wall). So if we decided to walk this way, we were only a short walk away.

The charming architecture of the buildings in Vieux-Quebec with their brightly coloured roofs from the promenade.  Getting to this part of the city is easy – it’s all downhill – getting  back to “upper town” not quite so much.

Rue du Petit-Champlain is lined with all sorts of wonderful shops and restaurants. It’s also where you can go to access the Funiculaire to ride to the top of the hill!

Where rue Notre-Dame and rue de la Place meet, lies Place-Royale. The cobblestoned square is filled with interesting eateries and shops and the  Église-Notre-Dame-des-Victoires.

Near the end of rue Notre Dame in Parc de la Cetière is the Quebec City mural. All four seasons are depicted in it as well as different periods in history with famous and not so famous people included.

It’s difficult to get an unobstructed view of the mural from the park with the number of people wanting to photograph it along with a tree in full leaf. This picture was taken from Côte de la Montagne a short way up the hill and beyond the tree.

Speaking of Côte de la Montagne, this is the hill you have to walk up. It’s steep and there are handrails next to some of the storefronts if you need to grab on and pull yourself along.

After all this walking, it was time for liquid refreshment and a meal so we stopped in at Pub St-Patrick. We headed to the fireplace room with its vaulted ceiling. The smell of the wood fires over the years lingered in the air. A little too warm for the fire to be lit on this trip but we experienced it last year.

The Price Building looks much like the Empire State Building in New York City. My husband and I have a bit of a standing joke about it. When we went on our horse and carriage ride last November, after giving us the history of it, our driver Philippe pointed and said “there’s the Price Building” every time it came into view. So after that (even though it got irritating at the time), one of us would look and point and say “there’s the Price Building”.

This is another tall building in Quebec City that isn’t visible from everywhere but when it is, if you think you’re lost just walk towards it.

Homeward bound… well at least to our hotel room. Once we reached the wall, we were only about five minutes at the most from our hotel room.

It’s an all uphill walk but at least it isn’t steep… just long.