Sunday the 24th of August. We go up early to get to the Basilica by 8:30am to hear the organ before 9:am Mass. We were rewarded with some lovely Bach etudes, and stayed for the whole Mass, as the music consisted of the organ, the cantor, and the congregation, no chorus. It was really nice and contemplative, the first time I have been to a Mass in more than two years.
Back to the hotel for a nice conversation with Madeleine. She was glad we had checked out some of the recommendations, and she offered a few more for Quebec-Ville which we will enjoy checking out. We packed up and left our bags at the front desk, and headed out to the Musée des Beaux Artes, another 6 blocks of the walk, ride three stops and walk 6 blocks. We were quite hot by the time we reached the museum, which was gratefully nice and cool. We grabbed the last two sandwiches in the tiny cafe, post-lunch so there was little to choose from. We saw an interesting mix of work of the late 19th and early 20th century from the permanent collection, from Fragonard to Picasso. There were many paintings by some of the lesser-known luminaries of the era, many of whose names I remembered from my college class on early 20th century painters. One beautiful painting by Tissot called October was gorgeous, as well as a wood sculpture called Always! Never! of a young woman kissing a skeleton, who may have been taking her life away or who might have been the dead lover she was reuniting with.
Another long, hot walk back, we got some sandwiches for the train ride at the Depanneur across the street (painted green and very popular), and headed off the the Place d’Armes metro again. Two stops to the gard central, and about a mile walk underground to the actual train station. We got there quite early, hada long wait, and the loading was very smooth. Our seats were fine, we had our sandwiches, read and enjoyed the scenery, after threatening rain for days, it finally actually started raining about an hour from Quebec-Ville.
We arrived 30 minutes early to a downpour. It seemed almost everyone on the train was expecting to take the bus, so suddenly everyone was looking for a cab or car hire. Lyft did not work here, so I called Uber (which I have always disliked but gritted my teeth) waited 10 minutes to get a driver but no one confirmed, and someone had called a taxi company and asked them to send many cabs, which they did. We got a cab for the very short ride to the Airbnb, had a bit of drama getting in but finally got inside. The place was quite nice for two, but we needed things for breakfast. I looked for a grocery nearby on Google and found Le Marche de Emma an 11-minute walk, “mostly flat.” It has stopped raining mostly, and the walk turned out to be quite uphill, through a narrow back alley, up a rickety staircase to a rampart where there were two large black cannons, and then up more hilly streets. We finally got to the market, hot, wet, and tired. The woman there was quite nice, we got our breakfast things, and downhill was definitely easier, except now it was really pouring. We made it back and relaxed a bit before heading to bed after a long day of walking and traveling.
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