Soggy for Crepes

September 29, afternoon and evening

The farmer's market is near the Lower Town. It is fun to wander through it and ooh and ahh over all the gorgeous produce and other goodies.

We ate some delicious gelato and then walked back to the hotel. After a bit, the guys went to visit the Citadel. They reported later that they had a great tour and got a lot of good photos.

City Hall

I did a little shopping in our "neighborhood."  So did Libby. It's a really fun area for shopping - lots of boutiques, and shops that are trendy without being pretentious.

Our dinner reservations were timed to coincide with the evening downpour. When we went downstairs to walk to the restaurant we thought the rain was just about done. No. It was just getting started.

I thought we could handle 7 blocks in the rain. Unfortunately, addresses here do not jump up by 100 every time you cross a street. It took us 20 minutes to get to Billig. Billig is a creperie. It is very casual. There is nice low-key music playing. The menu is mostly crepes, but there are a few other offerings. We ordered savory crepes for dinner. After one bite I knew that these were far superior to the ones we had at lunch time. Mine was filled with cheese, asparagus, ham and bechamel sauce. The quantity of filling was perfect. It was cooked perfectly. It was sooooo good. As were the others by all reports. 

Good enough that everyone wanted a dessert crepe and no one wanted to share. However, Ken was a gentleman and shared with me. I just couldn't eat a whole one. We got one withdark chocolate, pears and ice cream. It disappeared quickly. 

In the end everyone agreed that it was worth getting drenched. We walked back and hung our stuff up in the bathroom to dry out. I only stepped in one puddle and my shoes were dry by morning.

Walkabout

September 29

Our breakfast basket was just as much fun today.

Drum roll!

(The stonework wall is one of the walls in our room. It is part of the original structure.)

Ta-da!

Fanfare!

The OJ comes in jars that are washed and re-used. The apples are local. So is the cheese.

Our stay at the hotel comes with a free walking tour, so we decided to do that today. I love this hotel.

Our guide, Sarah, met our group at the hotel.

We walked around the "Upper Town" for a bit, and Sarah told us the history of Quebec and pointed out many interesting details as we wandeered through the narrow alleys of Old Quebec.

There is a shortage of proofreaders in Quebec.

After looking out over the ramparts we walked down a steep cobblestone street to the extremely picturesque "Lower Town."

We saw a fantastic trompe l'oeuil mural depicting the history of Quebec.

We saw some interesting art installations.

And more charming buildings.

Notre Dame des Victoires - the oldest stone church in North America

And the Frontenac looms over the Lower Town. The funiculaire can be seen on the right.

Stay tuned for a further report on our afternoon and evening adventures.

Information Touristique

September 28

Breakfast was delivered to our room at 8 am. A cute little basket was hung on a hook on the outside of our door. Inside was today's weather forecast (which was wrong) and all sorts of breakfasty goodies. I love this hotel! I will try to get a picture of our breakfast tomorrow.

We took off in our rental car to retrace the steps of one million tourists per year and visit the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. This is a basilica, not a cathedral, and it is worth a short trip out of town. This site has been occupied by a chapel or church since 1658. The current basilica was built in 1923 in the Romanesque style. It is filled with magnificent mosaics, stained-glass windows, and wood and stone sculptures.

Sainte Anne

I thought it was quite interesting that most of the mosaics and carvings featured local animals and plants. Each pew had a different local animal carved into the wood. There were small mosaics on the pillars, each depicting one local wildflower or mushroom. The floor contained mosaics of local animals. The stained-glass windows also showed non-traditional scenes, though I couldn't figure out the significance of the places named on each window.

A series of arches in the ornate lower level each revealed a different snowflake mosaic.

On our way to the next attraction we were passed by a pickup truck towing a trailer with low sides. Lying in the trailer - and partially out of it - was a dead moose.  That's not something you see every day, even in Alaska.

Our second stop was Montmorency Falls. We took a cable car or tram up to the top of the falls. From there it was possible to walk across the suspension bridge

at risk of life and limb

and then walk down 437 steps (one of us)

or go back across the bridge and take the tram back down (the rest of us).

Next we crossed over a bridge to l'Île d'Orléans. This is an island 20 miles long by 5 miles wide in the middle of the St. Lawrence just upstream from Quebec City. Our plan was to make a circuit around the island, stopping wherever we felt like it, and snacking as we went.

The island has a rural feel. There are small farms, orchards, vineyards, and agrotourism. There are cidreries (cider), fromageries (cheese), confitureries (jams and preserves), boulangeries (bakeries), chocolateries, wineries, and sugar shacks. Unfortunately, a lot of these were already closed for the season. Some of the places we wanted to visit were closed. Some were just disappointing. We had a hard time finding picnic foods.

The first farm stand we came to was wonderful. We bought FRESH, perfect strawberries, apples, and unpasteurized apple juice. Fantastic. I think it was called Polyculture Plante. Seems like an odd name.

Our next success came at a chocolaterie. I may have a photo of an empty box to post here soon.

Then we had a series of disappointments. The "maritime park" was a stark park with one building that had an entrance fee. It didn't look interesting enough to pay to go there. It looked more like a little shop than a maritime park. The cheese shop had one kind of cheese. Other places were closed or hard to find or they had a couple of tour buses there already. 

We stopped at one farm stand that advertised hot corn on the cob. They had a small  greasy restaurant sort of like a hot dog and hamburger stand. We went into the restaurant to see if they had corn. It must have been field trip day at the senior center. Every table in the place was filled with little old blue-haired ladies. We backed out slowly and then ran away.

We just kept driving and could not find a deli or a sandwich shop. Finally we stopped at a bakery that was open. It smelled wonderful inside and they had lots of mouth-watering treats, so we bought some pastries.

When we came to one of the larger sugar shack operations, the sugar shack part was closed, but the store was open (of course). The prices in the store were significantly higher than prices we had seen for the exact same products elsewhere. Buying at the source ain't necessarily the way to go.

Evidently, they connect blue tubes to all the trees. The sap runs downhill to the sugar shack and there they process it and end up with maple syrup. (I prefer Aunt Jemima, myself. I find the maple to be a little too mapley.)

Even though the tourist opportunities on the island did not live up to our expectations, the trip was worth it. The island is beautiful, the views are beautiful, it is tranquil and rustic and relaxed. Almost every house on the island is over-the-top charming. If I were a rich Canadian I would definitely live here, and I would drink cider every day.

We came back to the hotel and dropped off the kids and then intended to return the car to the rental office a few blocks away. For various reasons this took an hour. Back to the real world. But during this expedition I spotted a cool sculpture. I hope that's what it was.

We went to a bistro called Le Pain Béni for dinner. We liked it mostly. The menu was limited and not good for a vegetarian. Ken and I ordered the fondue for two, described as a sharing dish, for $55 (Canadian). I haven't had fondue in 30 year, and it seems to be a big thing here, so I wanted to try it. The cheese was pretty good but there wasn't much of it. We each got a small place with about one quarter of an apple (cut up), 8 grapes, and a handful of bread cubes (stale).  Really? We ran out of the cheese before we ran out of the bread and fruit. I asked the server if we had gotten the appetizer portion or the main dish portion and she said it was the main dish portion - with a straight face. To her credit, she did give us a free dessert. I had an excellent bread pudding (with cheddar cheese on it!) and Ken had a dark chocolate cake with chocolate moose and sorbet and other interesting things.

Some of the food was quite good, but I would not go back here.

I have skipped several days of blogging and I have lots of stories to tell. I hope to find some time to catch up soon.