Day 2 - a tour — Travelling bryans

We woke after a great sleep before the alarm. Reviews of the apartment mentioned the noisy bar underneath, but we didn’t hear a thing. We aren’t in the nicest of areas, so we are looking forward to seeing what the rest of Quebec City has to offer.

First though, we were logging online to watch the funeral of my dear dear friend Cheryl. After almost 5 years of fighting cancer, her life ended on 2nd May. Much to my upset, her funeral fell today, which meant I wasn’t able to attend. Thankfully, it was live streamed and I was able to watch, with my boys by my side. It was a beautiful service and perfectly summed up how special she was. I was very upset, but managed to get out and off to meet our tour group.

We met Juan in a small park in the centre of the old town. This was a free walking tour, where you tip the tour guide at the end, rather than pay in advance.

We had quite a big group, mainly made up of Americans, one Canadian, two Germans and two Italians and us three. Juan started out by explaining how the French wanted more land and found part of Canada that was only inhabited by indigenous people, Quebec City was founded in 1608 and became the heart of what was called New France. It was Samuel de Champlain who established a permanent trading post. He named it "Quebec," derived from the Algonquin word kebec, meaning "where the river narrows", which is exactly what the river St Lawrence River does here.

It’s good to know it’s not just the English to bulldoze through land we’ve wanted in history.

The weather was beautiful as we set off walking inside the walls of the old town. Our next stop was the Château Frontenac hotel. Built between 1892–1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway, it’s a huge château style hotel. It is one of the world’s most photographed hotels and it’s easy to see why. It’s beautiful.

Man checking out his hair before his selfie

By 1763, the British had decided they wanted a piece of this Canadian action and they invaded this beautiful city. It took them seven years, but eventually they defeated the French. They did erect many buildings in the old town, and Juan was very keen to point out the differences, with the French style way more beautiful every time. It wasn’t the best time to be British as we didn’t come off too well in Juan’s commentary! Two generals were killed in the famous battle which saw the British overcome the French; Montcalm (French) and Wolfe (British) and the are both commemorated on a beautiful obelisk,

We walked through lots of beautiful cobbled streets. Quebec is actually very compact, spotlessly clean and not very busy. It’s HILLY!

We visited the Parliament building and the university (outside only) and then three hours later we were back to the beginning. A very nice tour indeed.

We decided to have some lunch and found a cute restaurant. Oliver had a chicken burger, I had a veggie burger and Andrew tried poutine. Poutine is a traditional Quebec dish made of french fries, cheese curds and gravy. It was huge! The meal was nice - Andrew ending by saying he didn’t need to eat poutine again!

After lunch we went to the dock and took the ferry across the river to another part of Quebec described by Juan as ‘more modern’. After ten minutes of walking around we felt like were in some kind of strange scientific experiment. Nobody around, very large buildings with no windows and houses locked up. We walked around past two very ornate churches and then decided to go back to the old town again

After disembarking the return ferry we walked back to the old town and took the funicular up the hill to save our legs. We walked another twenty minutes to the citadel (that the British defeated). Like any good castle it’s at the highest point and we were rewarded with beautiful views across the old town and the river.

We were pooped now. We stopped for a cold drink in Tim Hortons and then made our way back to the apartment. We were too tired to go out, so we ate pizza from Nina’s pizza. Delicious. We watched the Spurs vs Knicks basketball game on TV. It was a big game and great to watch.

It’s been an emotional day, but we made the best of it.