We awoke late and had our breakfast. We discovered had bought some nice coffee beans but there was no coffee grinder so we used the old coffee. We spent some time figuring out the day, as it rained off and on in the morning. We decided to head to the train station to get metro tickets, which was difficult, the guy there told us to cross the street, go to rue Saint-Joseph and there would be a tabac where we could buy tickets. But there was no such street and no tabac and we got hot and thirsty, grrrr. We looked on the website and found that the bus station, right behind the train station, sold tickets, we went there and got the 20-ticket package which would last us this trip. The place was literally 50 feet from the guy who had given us the wrong directions. We both thought about how Madeleine would have really chewed him out for that.
We headed for the bus stop a few blocks away, and had a nice ride to the Parliament building for our tour, something Madeleine had encouraged us to do. We arrived a bit early, walked around the magnificent building and through the gardens, went through security and joined the tour.It was fascinating, incorporating the stolidly French- affiliation feel of the people of Quebec and how they wanted to preserve their French heritage. Somehow they incorporated the French, British, Irish, and Scottish ancestry of the people in a new coat of arms and the parliament. While the red maple leaf symbolizes Canada, the green maple leaf symbolizes French Canada. After the tour, we walked to Saint-Paul street to the Museum of Chocolate, really a second storefront next to a chocolate shop. It has a quite well-done set of exhibits about the origins of chocolate, its transformation into a staple of European society, and its popularity today. Of course, we bought some chocolates and enjoyed some delicious chocolate ice cream at a table outside. We also stopped at a store to get some laundry detergent, but everything was big plastic jugs and pods of 16 we would have had to dump. Then we saw a bar of laundry soap for $1.69 and that was it.
We continued going north, went up the original city stone walls, walked down a sweet little street called rue Saint-Louis, until it started getting crowded and suddenly we realized we were at Chateau Frontenac, the huge and expensive hotel at the top of the hill of the upper town. It is indeed huge and beautiful, but I could not believe they could build such a huge edifice, were there that many wealthy people traveling here years ago? We walked down to Dufferin Terrace with its spectacular views of the whole harbor, and walked a bit past the funicular and down a staircase, to a place with a huge historical mural, and then on rue Saint-Paul with crowds at restaurants until we were near our loft. We were tired but had a good day. We made a reservation for dinner at a restaurant in the oldest building in Quebec-Ville for tomorrow evening. This evening, we walked a few blocks to the Antiquaire Buffet that served traditional Québécois dishes. I had a meat pie with salad and vegetables, Barney had veal meatballs in brown gravy with mashed potatoes and vegetables and salad, and we split a nice bottle of Merlot. We were both too full for dessert, so we walked along the waterfront, and watched the Aurora Borealis light show on the old grain elevators across from our loft light up in green, purple, and yellow, quite spectacular. It was nice being close to the water, and away from the busy tourist areas we saw today. We headed to bed for a big day tomorrow
No comments:
Post a Comment