The Long Awaited Quebec Trip Report - Saturday, May 27, 2006

(The "Time Traveling" Gate we walked through)

Saturday

Saturday morning, I woke up about 8 am to see that it was very cloudy. Mr. Bean got up about 9 am and we decided to go see the Parliament first. Mr. Bean works in the Legislature so he is interested in all things government. We went to the concierge to find out how to get to the starting point of the Upper Town tour walk. We found out we were right next door to the Parliament – so that was a quick walk. As a result, we started in the middle of the “tour” but it was easy to do with the directions we had. Mr. Bean was disappointed that there was scaffolding all over the tower of the Parliament – that always seems to be our curse. Whenever we see something for the first time, it usually has scaffolding on it – the Washington Monument, the Pantheon, you name it, we have seen it with scaffolding. We call it “The Curse of the Scaffold”. Yes, we know it needs to be done, but doesn’t mean we like to look at it! Also, because it was Saturday, there were no tours which left Mr. Bean disappointed but something to look forward to the next time.

We then walked down and went under the arch of the fortress walls at the entrance for Rue St. Louis and into Vieux Quebec for the first time. Once you cross below that arch, it feels like you have transported yourself back in time from the present to the early 1800’s. It feels so magical and so European. We immediately turned right and walked up to the Citadel which was up a steep incline. Now one thing to know about Quebec is that it is NOT a flat walk. It is literally built into a cliff, hence the Upper Town and Lower Town. But even within each level of the town, it is VERY hilly. So wear VERY good walking shoes and be prepared to walk a lot and on an incline. My legs, especially my calves, got a good work out. So we walk up go through the first entrance of the Citadel and then are stopped. We find out that we have to take a tour as the Citadel is a working facility. And that it’s an hour long. Well, Mr. Bean was having NONE of that – he all of a sudden became Mr. Grump. “I’m Hungry”. Okay, what do you want to do about it? “You said you were going to bring up croissants to the hotel room for breakfast and you didn’t”. Well, you told me not to as we would find something on our walk. “Well, I didn’t know it was going to take this long”. You mean the 30 minutes we have been outside? And this is from a man who NEVER eats breakfast in real life and a lot of times doesn’t eat lunch. And last night we didn’t finish eating until after ten p.m when we usually eat diner about six p.m. “Well, I’m hungry today and I don’t want to wait an hour”. Alrighty then, we’re off to find food!

So we walked back down the incline, turned right and continued down Rue St. Louis – do we want Restaurant Parmesan? Not open. Restaurant L’Omelette? Too commercial. As we were walking, he became grumpier and grumpier – “where are the bakeries? Where are the pastry shops? I want a croissant!” Yikes – time to get some sugar in Mr. Hyper-glaucemic (sp?) And then we found our breakfast food mecca . . . a creperie right in between Maison Maillou and Chateau Frontenac. It was Le Petit Chateau Creperie. And this was when we had our gastronomic paradise of food. Two café au laits, two Francoises (crepe with apples and fromage) an orange juice and a pineapple juice for $33 CAN. And it was worth every penny. And I ate every morsel of deliciousness. It was heaven on a plate. Why can’t we have crepes here? I am not a breakfast person, but if this was a choice, I soon would be. YUM is the way to describe it.

But, one downfall. This was the time Mr. Bean decided to tease me about my French because the waitress kept correcting my pronunciation of words. You see, I was a French major in college, lived in Toulon, France for six months in order to get my degree and studied it for eight years. But there are several problems with this. First, I speak French with a southern accent. Which is VERY bizarre because I don’t speak American with a southern accent. I was born in upstate NY with very Northeastern parents so I never had an accent. We moved south and then I grew up there. So, all of my French “learnin’” came from teachers and professors who were distinctly southerners. I first learned of this problem when I lived in France and not only were the French people having some difficulties, but all of the other American students who were from the Midwest enlightened me as to this twist of French language fate. So, yes, I am an American who does not have a southern accent unless I speak French. Go figure.

Second, I learned Parisian French, not Canadian French. So there are some differences that can make things difficult. My origins are actually French Canadian. My grandparents on my dad’s side spoke French and my dad’s first language was French (of which he remembers absolutely nothing – how sad is that?) So my grandmother (memere to me) and I would argue over the spelling, etc. of French words. Third, since I graduated from college in 1994, I have had the need to speak French probably only about 6 or 7 times. And I have been out of school, learning French, for 12 years, 4 more years than I studied French as a whole. So yes, I am VERY rusty. So add those things in and it can make for fun times. I can speak it fine (with the accent of course), read it fine but listening is a bit tough, I admit. So my lovely Mr. Bean, who speaks not a lick of French, loved to see my difficulties and teased me relentlessly. Nice of him, don’t you think?

Anyway, sufficiently fortified by an amazing petit dejeuner (breakfast), Mr. Bean was up for learning some history again – he’s the history buff of the two. And during breakfast, it became a gloriously beautiful, blue sky, sunny day which it stayed for the remainder of our trip. I think this is due to my magic umbrellas – they are two –a small handbag sized umbrella and a large one that has the Sunday comics on it which we got free when we ordered delivery of the Sunday paper. Whenever I hear it’s going to rain, I bring these two trusty magical items with me and it never rains – I have had great success with it and no failures, just like on this trip.


"Chateau Frontenac"

Upon leaving the creperie, we turned right and first looked into the Chateau Frontenac, which is owned by Fairmont. Although pretty on the inside, we thought the Fairmont Copley Plaza in Boston, where we stayed on a trip in March, was much nicer. So it just confirmed our happiness with the Hilton.

We next went onto the Terasse Dufferin which is an amazing boardwalk outside the Chateau right on the end of the cliff. They are actually doing a lot of archeological work on the cliff, trying to find an old fort, but it is still pretty. It had an amazing view. We sat out there awhile, just drinking in the sites. You can just imagine back in the 1800’s, people walking on this wooden boardwalk, with parasols and long dresses for the women and top hats and canes for the men. In the present, however, we have shorts, capris, baseball hats and cameras. We loved watching all of the dogs until we noticed they were walking funny. We realized upon touching the wooden boardwalk that it was VERY hot and these poor pets were having to put their poor paws onto the hot wood while the owners, in shoes were oblivious. The Promenade Des Gouverneurs, which is a staircase leading up the cliff from the Terrasse to the Citadel was closed at it just closed on May 1 and will be closed until November because they are updating it. Darn, I don’t get to walk up a ton of steps.

We then continued our walk through the Jardin des Gouverneurs, which used to have the Governeur’s maison which burnt to the ground, the Place D’Armes, and then over to the Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame, the main catholic church in Upper Town. Although pretty, it was not one of my favorites. We also checked out the Seminary. We then went up my favorite street – Rue du Tresor which is simply an amazing alley way which artists have overtaken with their wares for sale. All of it was beautiful, but my favorite pieces were alas too rich for my blood. One piece I really wanted which was of Quebec in the abstract (in oil), the artist wanted $475 – it was about 16” by 24”. Another artist wanted $80 for an 8” by 12” oil painting. I asked how much for 2 and he said $150 which didn’t seem like much of a discount. I’m sure the paintings were worth every penny, but we just didn’t want to spend that much.

Now, I’m sure you were wondering my I call Mr. Bean – “the pamphlet guy”. Well, as you can tell above, I am an extreme travel planner. I have folders, guides, plans, maps, calendars, schedules, etc. I have it all. And although Mr. Bean enjoys it, he sometimes likes things more spontaneous. And one way he imposes this on me is through his pamphlet, shall we say “fetish”. He loves pamphlets. Whenever we travel anywhere, the first thing he heads to in a hotel is their pamphlet rack – you know the one. The one where each pamphlet or brochure says THEIR place is the most amazing place to go to and for only $$$ here, you should come too. And Mr. Bean picks up about 50 of them and swears that, if it’s in a pamphlet, we need to go to it. So then I spend the next few hours in the hotel explaining that none of the real tour guides such as Fodors have ever mentioned this place before so I don’t think we should go. But then I get worn down and succumb to one of them. And then the “pamphlet” place is always a bust – but I must admit good for a story.

For example, the only time we’ve been to London was in March 2004. We had only three days in London; and as I know you are aware, we had a ton of sightseeing to do. And I had the perfect schedule to do it in. Well, Mr. Bean found a pamphlet for a museum which had just opened which depicted all the murders and horrific things of London like Jack the Ripper, etc. Well, after being stuck in this tour for more than three hours (of which I was going insane), Mr. Bean was repaid by only getting to see the Westminster Abbey (he loves graves and tombstones) for about 30 minutes because we got there just before closing time. Then, in Boston this past March, he found a pamphlet for a Star Wars exhibit at the Boston Science Museum. As he is a Star Wars Fanatic, he begged to go. It was his birthday trip; so of course I said yes. Needless to say, although he liked the exhibit, he hated the museum as it was too crowded and too many noisy kids.

So, we are now upon the point of the Quebec pamphlet story – we had such an episode here. The night before, he found a pamphlet for “Quebec Extraodinaire” – a 3-D movie off of Rue du Tresor which would explain the entire history of Quebec. When we bypassed the site when we were on the Rue du Tresor, he wanted to go. As the movie was only 30 minutes, I said okay. So now I have another pamphlet story. For only $15 CAN, the two of us got to see a “3D” movie that wasn’t really 3D. When the movie started (in the very deep movie voice) “Since the beginning of time . . . “, we knew were in for a fun ride. And the special effects were in fact, not very special. They had a waterfall upon which they showed some of the movie. And they kept using it over and over and over again because it really was the only special effect they had. There was also a face that they would make into someone speaking and there was a falling bridge (which made me laugh in a very quiet theatre which was supposed to be a very somber part of the movie - sorry to the other patrons), but other than that, not much. So save your $15 and have a couple of café au laits somewhere. And Mr. Bean admitted that, once again, his pamphlet didn’t work out the way he wanted it to; but we still liked it because it made us laugh.



After the lovely movie, we decided we were hungry. So off we went to my favorite meal of the trip – Aux Anciens Canadiens. It is in a historic home called Maison Jacquet, built in 1677, at 34 rue St-Louis. All the tour guides recommended this place and it was amazing. For lunch, they have a fix prixe for $14.95 CAN, you get soup, entrée, dessert and a glass of wine or beer. For our appetizer, as I don’t like leek soup, I upgraded for an additional $4.50 for French onion soup – YUMMY! Mr. Bean upgraded for $4.50 for escargot – delish. The bread was homemade and very good. We both picked the St. Jacque pie with beef, pork and caribou – absolutely amazing. I’m not usually a meat pie person, but this was a slice of heaven with a slight sweet taste that complimented the meat. The crust was light and not like any crust I had ever tasted. It came with what they called “ketchup” but was really a fruit compote which was also amazing. I also had this stringy vegetable that tasted like a cross between spaghetti squash and sauerkraut. I asked what it was and was shocked to learn it was turnips and honey. I normally hate turnips, but I really liked this. For dessert, we both had the maple sugar pie with cream which was the most heavenly thing I have ever put in my mouth. We decided it was similar to what pecan pie would taste like without the pecans and I have now decided that pecans were worthless! The meal, with two nonalcoholic ciders and a café au lait came to approximately $60 CAN - very much worth it. One interesting thing about this place to know is that they don’t allow you to take leftovers with you. I meant to ask why but forgot. So if anyone else goes, please ask because I’m dying to know the reasoning!

We enjoyed the meal so much that I bought the cookbook, which was signed by the chef of the restaurant ($10). I have decided that the maple sugar pie will be my signature dessert at holidays, etc. so I was very excited. I was saddened to see that the St. Jacques pie was not in the menu, so they immediately printed up a copy for me, along with a recipe for the ketchup. I found out the ingredient that made the pie sweet was cinnamon which was great for the meat. I can’t wait to try the recipes at home. I also bought a lithograph of the restaurant ($5) which I’m going to frame for my French country kitchen at home. The meal was unbelievable, the service impeccable I would recommend this place to anyone!

After being sufficiently fortified, we continued on our tour and literally went just around the corner onto Rue des Jardins for a two second walk to the Chapelle/Musée des Ursulines, a chapel for the still running monastery of the Ursuline nuns. Whether or not you have certain opinions about the catholic church, this place shows an amazing history of the influence of these nuns upon the native Canadians. The Chapel was very pretty and interesting to show how they divide the section for the nuns by iron bars from the rest of the population during services. Also, the museum, which is $6 pp, was interesting to show the history. It is a three story building showing how the nuns influenced Quebec.

We next went further down the Rue des Jardins for another two seconds to the only Anglican church called the Anglican Cathedral of the Holy Trinity which was built in 1804. We thought this was the prettiest church of the four we visited that weekend. And it was funny to see English as the primary language everywhere instead of the French we saw everywhere else.

We continued down the Rue des Jardins and saw the Town Hall and then continued to walk on Rue St. Jean, to check out the stores. It was a VERY busy street with a lot to see people wise and some very interesting stores. There were also regular clothes stores, etc. that you would see in NYC. All in all an interesting street. We walked this street all the way back to the fortress wall. On the way, at the very end was what appeared to be a Caberet with a huge circular lit up sign. It kind of reminded me of the Moulin Rouge in Montmartre in Paris. It was another busy area of Rue St. Jean. We also passed an area where there appeared to be a skateboarders park with a ton of skateboarders and then bleachers where a lot of people were just watching them. Very interesting.

Once we walked out of the fortress walls, we continued on Rue St. Jean for about two blocks until we reached the convention center/mall of Quebec which is partially at 880 Rue St. Jean. So instead of walking up the hill to our hotel, we were able to ride up three or four levels of escalators as the Hilton (and the Delta for those who stay there) are connected to the convention center. Also in this mall is a great ATM at the Banque de Scotia which we could use our bank card and were not charged extra for taking out money. I must admit the escalator rides were a MUCH needed respite from the all day walking as my legs and feet were sore. We went out that day at about 9-9:30 a.m. and were returning to the hotel about 3:30-4 p.m. So, including two meals, we toured about 6-7 hours which was at a leisurely pace. Not too shabby. And the town was not crowded at all so it was very relaxing.

We then decided to refresh ourselves at the Hilton pool. This pool is open year round as it is heated and has a section where you can get into the pool inside and then swim under a glass wall to get outside. I was happy about this because our Memorial Weekends up north are usually chillier. Well, not this year. After walking around in about 80 degree, sunny weather, we were ready for a swim. And the Hilton has probably one of the nicer hotel pools I’ve seen. It is on the third floor and has a wonderful view of Vieux Quebec. It was very clean and we enjoyed it immensely. The only “issue” involved a large group of students who were obviously there on a school trip – there actually appeared to be a lot of them. Kids were just being kids so we didn’t really have a problem but some people might as they were excited and a bit noisy. The pool was wonderful though (I’m beginning to feel like an advertisement for Hilton).

After the refreshing swim in the pool, we decided we were once again hungry and wanted to find a place to eat. We went back down the escalators to Rue St. Jean and decided to take a left away from Vieux Quebec instead of a right. What a great street! Lots of cute stores and ethnic restaurants (and a vegetarian restaurant as well) and we found the bakeries! In just the few blocks we walked, we found three bakeries. So that’s where the croissants, pain au chocolates and French bread were! We vowed to return on Monday to take supplies home.

Along the way, we found a cemetery on Rue St. Jean right next to a small stone church, the name of which I cannot remember. As Mr. Bean loves looking at the history of cemeteries and their tombstones, I told him to look around while I pulled up a park bench and people watched. Well, our first sign that this cemetery was going to be interesting was the fact that it was open until 23 h, i.e. 11 p.m. What cemetery is open that late and what good can come of it after dark? We were there about 7 p.m . and it was still very sunny out. As I was sitting there, I saw not one, but two different men, who appeared appropriately dressed, walk in from the street go up against the church and pee against it. Does this mean they are going to heck? They then returned to the street and were on their merry way. I was shocked but could not stop myself from laughing. I promised myself that if a third did the same, I was taking a picture no matter what. Unfortunately (or fortunately, who knows) no such third person arrived. Also, there were couples, I kid you not, using sarcophaguses as beds and making out on them. Then, Mr. Bean returned and said he saw a number of condoms. Just lovely. Plus you could smell alcohol everywhere. I really feel sorry for this church and cemetery, both of which were very old. The church was really pretty. Needless to say, it is not someplace I would want to be at night.

We didn’t see any restaurants that we wanted so we decided to walk back down Rue St. Jean into the walled old city. Boy had it gotten busy since we were there last. You could definitely tell it was Saturday night in lovely summer weather. It was really fun to people watch. And we love seeing all of the dogs. They were so cute and well behaved! We could never bring our Jefferson out like that as she would get way too excited. We also did a bit of shopping. Mr. Bean was excited because he was able to get a jersey and baseball cap with the old Quebec NHL hockey team logo on it. I must admit I thought it was cute too – but don’t tell him that or he’ll never wear it. I love the fleur de lys that represents Quebec.

As you may recall, we originally had plans for our two dinners but we decided we didn’t want to get all dressed up and just wanted to wing it instead. So that is what we did. After a couple of places being too packed, we found the perfect outdoor place to eat: REST FRERES DE LA COTE. It was a great little restaurant right on Rue St. Jean, where the street curves to the right and up the hill, near the St. Patrick’s Pub. Once we sat down outside, we heard a lady behind me tell another person that she is from Montreal and every time she comes to Quebec, she eats at this bistro, she loves it so much. So that made Mr. Bean and I very happy. This bistro also had a prix fixed menu so for $19.95 CAN, I could get an appetizer, entrée, dessert and café or tea. I liked the choices so I ordered it, having foie gras pate for the entrée, lamb, provencale style for the entrée and chocolate cake for dessert. I also had an alcoholic cidre. The pate was delicious with a little salad and the red onion sauce, on lovely French bread. The lamb was a HUGE amount, in slices that were tender and in a nice gravy. And once again, lovely sides – the cooked vegetables of fresh green beans, red and green peppers, broccoli and cauliflower made me eat it right up. I actually ate that first which I never do – if we cooked vegetables this way at home, I would eat them all of the time. It also came with a lovely potato au gratin. The chocolate cake was also delicious, very moist with an almost pudding like texture. Mr. Bean did not see anything on the prix fixe menu he liked so he ordered proscuitto with melon for an appetizer. I swear they gave him almost a pound of proscuitto and a ½ of melon. For his entrée, he ordered steak frites which he had been wanting since before we got to Quebec. For a man who loves his A1 sauce here in the states, he used none there. Also, he loved his fries, which in the states he never eats. He shared my cake with me. The meal came to about $65 with tip.

We will also return to this yummy bistro. The only complaint I can make about the bistro was that there were too many tables on the small outdoor terrace so we were scrunched together. Because of this, my legs were really bent and the waiter had trouble getting around the tables. So when it was time to leave, my legs, between the huge amount of walking and being bent so much at the table, they REALLY cramped up. I really didn’t think I was going to make it back to the hotel. Slowly but surely we did. And on the way, the Quebec Fire Department was having a show of old (antique) and new fire trucks which of course Mr. Bean, the man that he is, enjoyed immensely. And I enjoyed looking at the firemen themselves who kept up the fireman image quite nicely, if I do say so myself!

Once back in the room, we watched more French Canadian telly and had a wonderful sleep.