Quebec City

After visiting Montreal we made the 2.5 hour drive to Quebec city. Out of the two cities, Quebec was our favourite. The old city was MUCH larger, more beautiful and there was more history to be seen in Quebec. Quebec city is the only fortified city north of New Mexico and is an Unesco World Heritag site. We kept feeling like we were in France and being in Quebec made us want to go back to France that much more. It was amazing to see how different Quebec is than the rest of Canada, it truly has it's own culture. The only thing that stood out as Canadian was the money. We had a wonderful trip and were glad we got to see and experience lots, even with a one year old.

There are many places around the walled city that have line ups of cannons.

Walking around the lower part of the city, just outside the walls, Le quartier de Petite Champlain. We loved this little area. Sight seeing on a Sunday evening and Monday in spring meant not a lot of tourists, loved that! So many cute shops and little cobblestone streets.

The big Champlain monument just in front of the Chateux Frontenac. After taking so many Canadian history classes and teaching about explorers for so many years it was great to finally go to some of the places that the explorers are famous for. Champlain was considered the father of New France since he was more interested in settlement than exploration (that's for you Melanie and Diane!)

Looking out over the St. Lawrence. I love how Sarah's waving to me in this pic.

All the little houses below.

Chateux Frontenac is the huge Fairmont luxury hotel right inside the walled city. The hotel is also an icon of the city and is pictured on most postcards and art depicting the city. It was indeed impressive, too pricey for us though.

We went for a long walk just outside the city wall and ended up in the Plains d' Abraham. This is where the battle of Quebec occured back in the 7 years war. The battle was a key moment in deciding the fate of New France and the later the creation of Canada.

Right next to the plains was the Quebec citadel. This is a large fortress (built under British rule and covers over 37 acres) and is considered the most important fortification built in Canada. Also really impressive in reality but hard to show in pictures.

The citadel is still an operational running army base today.

We were amazed how many sculptures, murals and art pieces were around the city. They helped make the city even more unique and enjoyable to visit.


After a day of walking around old Quebec city we decided to go have crepes. Once inside the little restaurant we saw that Raclette was on the menu and so we decided to have dinner instead. When I lived in Switzerland as an au pair (nanny) this was my favourite special meal to have. David had never tried it, just heard about me rave about it, so we thought this was the perfect time.

Raclette is actually a type of cheese that you melt at the table and scope off as it's melted. I had only ever seen raclette machines with individual cheese servings, so this was all new to me. It is always served with potatoes (small new potatoes are best), pearl onions and baby gerkins. Ours also came with ham and a dried meat. Yummy! Yep, we ate the whole block of cheese, how can you not love melted cheese!

David found scooping the cheese off a little tricky, we had some good laughs though.

On our way back to the car.

On Tuesday morning we headed back home. It was a 10 hour trek, but surprisingly went by pretty fast. Sarah slept for nearly 3 hours in the morning and had her afternoon nap as well after we stopped for lunch. Since we were going into Toronto right at rush hour we decided to stop at a mall on the outskirts to look around, stretch our legs and have a bite to eat, as to avoid traffic. There was even a Moores Clothing store there so David got fitted for the wedding right away. The plan worked out great, we got back onto the freeway at 7 and were home by 8:30. It's always good to go away but it's always good to be back home as well.