My First Summer Vacation Adventure : Quebec City with Todd, Bonnie & Blair!

Like I mentioned in my previous post, I'm now officially on three week's vacation from work!  We started off my holidays with a bang! 

It took a lot of persuading to get Todd to take a couple of days off of work and to go to Quebec City for a 4-day weekend.  We paired up with my stitching friend Bonnie and her husband Blair.  Over the last two years the four of us have become good friends, despite the distance between our homes (3 hour drive apart).  Back in February we started the planning/discussions.  I wanted to go back to QC, so did Bonnie and Blair, also Todd had never been before!  This past weekend, it finally happened!

We got back home this evening, and to keep on top of things I downloaded my over 500 photos right away, I've culled them, tagged them, and selected ones to share with you!  I'm going to break this down into two post for you covering our two main days in Quebec City.  From my area Quebec City is a good 5 hour drive so we pretty much spent two days driving there and back.

The four of us started out Friday morning by packing up Bonnie's car and off we went heading towards Montreal.  The timing was perfect for us to stop in my "old neighbourhood" of Dollard-Des-Ormeaux to have the best Montreal Smoked Meat sandwich ever at McBay's a restaurant I had been going to since I was knee-high to a grasshopper!  The food is still excellent!  Then it was back in the car all the way to Quebec City.  We checked into our hotel, stretched our legs a little, then met for dinner at Chez Greco and had amazing Greek food for dinner.  There was plenty of evening left and none of us wanted to retire for the evening so after some net-surfing and a few phone calls and my so-so french we found one movie theater about a 20 minute drive away that was playing ONE English move!  Who would of thought it would be so hard to find a movie playing in English?  We all really enjoyed Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows Part 2!

Hilly Streets

And Lots of Stairs

After a lovely breakfast on the patio of a nearby diner we hopped into the car for the short drive to Vieux Quebec (the old city) which was founded in 1608.  Its a gorgeous area full of old world, European Charm!  We spent the whole day... and I mean the whole day in the city, not getting back to our hotel until after midnight!  Quebec City is not for the feint of heart, its full of stairs and hills any rich foods you eat will be quickly worked off (or so I hope but only the scale will tell at the end of the week).

Amazingly Landscaped Gardens

St. Joan of Arc, doesn't the horse look terrified?

We started out at a park I caught a peek of when I was there last year.  I never got to explore it and we happened to park the car nearby.  So we started out at this gorgeously landscaped park with a statue of St. Joan of Arc featured at its center.

 Horsing around at the Martello Tower

 Wonderful views of the St. Lawrence River from the Martello

 I was amused by this... there's lots of cannons around the old city!

From there we wandered the beautiful park lands that were the Plains of Abraham (famous battleground between the English and the French).  We checked out the two remaining Martello Towers which were built to defend the settlement.  We took in fantastic views of the St. Lawerence River and headed towards the city walls.

The Old City Walls

Relaxing on the Boardwalk with Todd

Bonnie & Blair were taking a break too.

It didn't take much to talk Todd into climbing the cannon!

 A glimpse of the Lower City from the Boardwalk above

Chateaux Frontenac... you don't want to know how much it costs to stay here!

After checking out the very tall and thick city walls we took the stairs down to the boardwalk that overlooks the St. Lawrence River, the lower old city, and leads you to Quebec City's trademark building, the Chateaux Frontenac.

It was busy, busy, busy!  One of the streets was closed to cars for the day.

 FIRE!

 Lots of little shops and fantastic restaurants

 Artist's Alley

 Street performers

From this point we just wandered around all day checking out streets, buildings, and of course shops full of touristy stuff.  I found after I had been in 2-3 shops that they pretty much carried all the same stuff.

Funiculars ferry people from the upper to the lower city

 Music performers were sprinkled around the lower city

Lots of charming buildings and nooks & crannies

Glass blowing

One of two fantastic murals in the lower city

Horsing around... a lot of people were doing silly things and posing in front of the mural

Later in the afternoon we took the funicular down to the lower city to explore.  Another area I didn't get much of a chance to explore last summer.  We visited a gourmet chocolate shop, which was so tasty!  Then we stumbled across a shop with real live glass blowers!  Wow it was so hot in there, but soooo cool!

Once the dinner hour rolled around we went a restaurant we had all visited last year (well, except Todd that is).  Le Cochon Dingue where we had a very tasty meal with yummy dessert!

Experimenting with a D-SLR at night

Canadian Coast Guard ship all lit up

Maple Leaf lit from below

After hiking about the hilly city we had to go up, up, up the stairs from the boardwalk to the Plains of Abraham and back to the car and bed!