Quebec City

Thursday, June 10, we put some major kilometers on our car as we drove from Mt. Tremblant to old Quebec City, the oldest walled city in North America. Carolyn had read all about the history and wanted to see it, we had just misjudged our geography and didn't realize (before we left) that it would take over four hours to drive from the Club to the City. But after our relaxing day at the spa, we decided it was worth the trip.

Again, the areas outside of the major cities are totally covered in either trees or farm land and we had another beautiful day of blue skies and moderate temps. The last hour or so we drove up the highway that shadows the St. Lawrence river. Small towns/villages every 5 to 10 kms with farms in between. Great river views with acres of crops or pastures for cows or sheep. In California, this view property would be coveted by developers as perfect for upscale home buyers! But here, sheep have the best views.

We found our way through the walls of the old city and parked at the Hotel Frontenac that is perched on the bluffs overlooking the river. We ate our picnic lunch in the adjoing park and watched dozens of school children tumbling down the grass slope that borders a wide Victorian-type promenade in front of the hotel. Later we took the funicular down to the port area and the Musee de Civilization where we tried to avoid rooms full of hyper school children and checked out how the Inuit build igloos and Native Americans built birch canoes. We walked the top of the walls and wandered the narrow streets while checking out shops and artists.


Quebec City gate 


Hotel Frontenac 


Quebec City Promenade 


Quebec City Artists 

On the way home we found ourselves stuck in some of Montreal's rush hour and again found a way to circumvent the main highway and took the scenic farm route. We stopped in St. Jerome around 9 for dinner (every city is named after a saint you never heard of) and found the restaurant we had read about had just closed their kitchen for the night. But they directed us to a great Italian restaurant where we ate and drank well, but moderately, as we still had another hour drive back to the Club. Getting home around 11 I was beat and dropped into bed after driving about 800 km and being gone from before 7 am.