The Long Awaited Quebec Trip Report - Sunday, May 28, 2006

Sunday

I woke up once again about 7 am for another gorgeous and sunny day. Wow, I love our view! I enjoyed the view and a good book while Mr. Bean slept until about 9:30 a.m. Today was lower town day! I grabbed my Walking Tour 2, with map, that I got from the internet, and we were off!

Yesterday, we had decided to start the day at the Citadel before going to lower town. This morning, however, Mr. Bean decided he didn’t want to because “nothing happened there” anyway. I didn’t really care as I had seen it before, but I asked if he was positive. As he was, I happily didn’t have to walk up another incline as my legs and feet were still a bit sore from the day before.

Instead, we returned to our lovely breakfast spot on Rue St. Jean at Le Petit Chateau Creperie. And once again, not busy at all. We sat outside again, but this time under the awning as opposed to right out in the sun as we were both a bit red from the day before. During our entire meal we got to hear the amazing church bells from each of the churches in the area. I don’t think they stopped once during out entire meal. There’s nothing like a good breakfast in beautiful weather with glorious background music. I did have trouble deciding what to eat. I absolutely loved what I had the day before; however, I felt weird ordering the same thing again as I felt I should try something new. I then decided that I didn’t care if I ate the same thing the day before because who knew when I would eat it again? Mr. RF felt the same way so two Francoises (crepe with apple and fromage), two café au laits, a jus d’orange and jus d’ananas (pineapple) later and $33 later, we were off to see the lower town.

Instead of walking down the steps (which is free), we decided to take the Funiculaire, which essentially is a glass box which takes passengers up and down the cliff for $1.50 pp each way. It’s located right at the end of Rue St. Jean on the Terrasse Dufferine. What shocked us upon reaching the Terrase, however, was the HUGE cruise ship docked at the port. I had no idea that cruise ships went here. Where do they start and where do they go? Definitely something Mr. Bean and I are interested in looking into. It was funny though because with the amazing weather, the “europeaness” of the town and then seeing the cruise ship, we really felt like we were more on a Caribbean island like St. Maarten or St. Thomas instead of being up north in Canada. Who would of thought that we would have August type weather in May? Anyway, the funiculaire was not busy this day and we got right on, but I can’t imagine how long it would take to get on in the middle of the summer as it only takes about 10 people per trip (there are two). It’s about a 5 minute trip each way. I enjoyed it but I don’t think I would like it if it was too packed as it was stuffy.

Once down below, we were immediately amazed by the quaintness and beauty of the area. As you walk out of the Maison Louis Jolliet, which was built in 1683 and now is also the building which houses the funiculaire, looking immediately to your right is Rue du Petit-Champlain, the oldest street in North America, and is now pedestrian only with shops, restaurants and of course the cliff. It’s amazing and you really feel transported back in time. I can only imagine how pretty it must look in the winter with snow and Christmas decorations. We meandered down the street, looking in the many art galleries, jewelry stores and souvenirs shops, of course. I’m still mad at myself for not buying that necklace I really liked or anything from the shop that had all sorts of kitchen trinkets which looked like they were from Provence, France.

We continued down the street and basically made almost a U-turn to walk down boulevard Champlain which unfortunately is a main street upon which cars are allowed to drive so you are thrust back into reality. There are also souvenir stores there as well as cafes. We walked down that street until Maison Chevalier, which was built in 1752, and through the years, went from the home of merchant Jean-Baptiste Chevalier, to an inn, to a market, to a coffee shop, etc. This was a free museum (they take donations but don’t push it on you) which was two levels and showed us how the building changed over the years and how the Quebecois lived. I really enjoyed it.

After checking out the museum, we left the busy boulevard and walked up the stoned rue Notre-Dame (back to pedestrian only streets) to rue Sous-le-Fort, turned right, and walked to the Royal Battery which was built in 1691. Although it was neat to see all of the cannons, the real excitement was when you turned around to look back up the street and VOILA! There was an absolutely amazing view (and wonderful photo moment) of the old street, the cliff and Chateau Frontenac. I took many photos there and may even frame one if they turn out as good as I think they will. After spending several moments enjoying the jaw dropping view, we returned back up the rue and took a right on rue Notre-Dame to go to Place Royale, which was the town’s marketplace. In this square was the Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, which was built in 1688 and restored in 1763 after a siege. We couldn’t go in at this time as they were getting ready to start mass.

We then started walking towards the Musee de Civilization. It was a very modern museum which cost $8 pp adult. The first exhibit was on Indonesia, which was a weird coincidence because we had no clue about the earthquake until after we got back in the room that night. Although interesting, we really wanted to move on to the Quebec exhibits since that’s where we were. So we went into the room called “The People of Quebec, Then and Now” , which had a history of Quebec. It was a great interactive exhibit with movies, audio, things for the kids to touch. Really nice and enjoyable for kids and adults alike. At this time, there are also two new exhibits: “Quebec Cinema, The Whole Story” and “Movie Studio”. Quebec Cinema discussed the history of film in Quebec – we even received free audio guides where, when you stood in a certain spot, the audio came on itself. I love tv and movies, so I found it interesting even though I didn’t know the films. And I saw two Oscars in real life – something I found fascinating. One thing of note – watch out for kids here, because they also show movies and they had no problem showing pieces of movies where the women were barebreasted and enjoying themselves, if you know what I mean. Just a warning for parents. The Movie Studio part was just weird. When you first entered, it was neat because you walked through an area with a green screen so you could see yourself with a variety of movie backgrounds. We had fun with that. Once you got in, however, we just didn’t get it. They had some props and costumes from what appeared to be recent movies; but they also were showing a film which a group of people seemed enthralled in, but we only saw lines and fuzz on it, like the movie was blank – we were wondering if it was showing subliminal messages or something. We also tried to get into “Autopsy of a Murder” which let you figure out clues to solve a murder. It looked very interesting, but at that moment a huge group of boy scouts came in so we decided to move on. We were there about 2 hours and felt we hadn’t even scratched the surface. It is a great place and would be a ton of fun on a rainy day, but it was so beautiful out, we decided to go outside.

We then walked to the port where there were a ton of bikers, joggers, sight seers, picnickers, etc. And boy was the sun hot! We walked there a bit but this area seems to be the part that could have been thought up a little better. There were a lot of factories, etc. that just kind of made it look ugly. Once we were done there, we decided we were starving. We went back to the pedestrian part and went on rue Sault-au-Matelot, near rue St-Paul because I really wanted to try L’Echaude which had been named the best bistro to eat at by several guides. Well, we got there at 1:30 p.m. and they said the kitchen was closed. How could the kitchen be closed at 1:30 pm on a Sunday and a gorgeous day at that? I was really annoyed and it didn’t seem like good business sense either as there were a ton of people out. So starving, we walked past the Place Royale, took a quick peek into Eglise Notre-Dame-des-Victoires - but we were on a mission people! Found a GREAT place called BISTRO SOUS-LE FORT which was right on rue Sous-le-Fort (big surprise there). We sat outside and with my view, I could see the cliff, funiculaire and Chateau Frontenac. We also had a very nice waitress. Once again, hubby and I ordered the same thing, which is VERY weird for us. We usually order totally different things from each other, but on this trip, we ordered the same thing 4 times. Here, we each had the Parisienne baguette which considered of duck, shredded like BBQ (but without the sauce) with fromage, lettuce, tomato and the hottest mustard known to man. This came with yummy fries (why do canadien fries taste better than American?). We then each had maple syrup pie for dessert. With one café au lait, 2 perriers, and an alcoholic cidre, it was about $59 with tip.

After being fortified, we decided it was time to go back to the hotel. Before we did, however, I wanted to buy a tshirt. I found one I liked, but when I was trying to find my size, the shopkeeper (who was in her 60’s) started screaming what do you want, what do you want, and swatted my hand from touching the tshirts. You would have thought I was touching Lladro or diamonds or something. So, I said, nothing now and off we went. So we went back up the funiculaire, walked ALLLLL the way back to the hotel and almost passed out from fatigue of two days of MASSIVE walking. We then got up the strength to change into our swimsuits and use the pool which was really great on our muscles and revived us. Pool was much quieter that day.
After a refreshing dip in the pool, we tried to decide what we wanted to do for dinner. We were really tired – do we want to order in? Go back to Vieux Quebec? What? Mr. Bean asked if I wanted to go to the Thai restaurant we saw on Rue St. Jean so off we went. And we are so glad we did! For some reason, the street was blocked off for BLOCKS for some sort of street festival. It was starting to wind down by the time we got there but it was still entertaining to people watch and to look at each venders’ wares. We then went into the Thai restaurant and enjoyed a great meal. I had “peanut butter chicken” and Mr. Bean had curry chicken. Both meals came with soup, two light eggrolls and dessert (he had tapioca pudding and I had flan). The meal was very good and with three sodas (cans) it came to only $34 with tip. The only bad thing about the meal, was during the entrée, I had to use the rest room. I came back and my plate was gone and I hadn’t finished eating. Mr. Bean swore he said several times not to take it, but the waiter totally ignored him. I’m guessing the waiter did not very good English and Mr. Bean only knows oui in French.

After the meal, we decided to check out the marche (grocery store). Big mistake. It wasn’t clean enough for Mr. Bean so he refused to bring anything home from it, either pate or cheese (although it was all super wrapped) so I didn’t get to take anything home. That’s the one thing I was really bummed about. We then walked home and slept after watching our lovely French canadien variety show which included Sinatra, The Wiz and more.