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Friday, September 12: After breakfast, I managed to get the car into the loading zone in front of the hotel, and we loaded up. We left at 9:30, heading for Quebec City. We took the older PR40 instead of PR 20 because we hoped to have some nice views of the St. Lawrence River along the way. While there were a couple of good views, there were also a lot of trucks, industry, and construction.
We arrived at the B&B Accueil St. Louis in Old Quebec at 12:30 and
were very disappointed. The location was excellent, just inside the St.
Louis Gate on the main street, close to everything. Our room was very
large, but the furnishings were sparse and dilapidated, the inside
shutters (the only window treatments) were filthy and broken, and their
was absolutely no attempt at decoration. The "private"
bathroom was next to our room, but not connected, so we had to
go out into the hall to get to it. The rate here also included
breakfast. We decided to spend the first night there, but to look around
for something else. On the positive side, our host, Monsieur Benjamin,
fell all over himself trying to be nice. I parked the car under
the City Hall and walked the three blocks back to the B&B.
Less than a block down rue St. Louis, we had lunch at La Petite Italie with a table at a window overlooking the street. We had been eating way too much so we both ordered quiche, the lightest thing on the menu. We didn't realize until after we had declined a soup that it came with soup, salad, beverage, and dessert, far more than we wanted. We still ate the dessert.
As we continued down rue St. Louis into Place D'Armes, intending to go to the lower
town, it began to drizzle. We ducked into the Frontenac Hotel, which we intended to see
eventually anyhow. The Frontenac is the most prominent landmark in Old Quebec, perched on
the edge of Cap Diamont, the hill overlooking the St. Lawrence River and the lower town. It is
one of the dozen or so large hotels built by the Canadian Pacific Railroad. (We had visited the
Empress in Victoria, British Columbia, another of the chain.)
We discovered that the hotel had 50 minute guided tours, so we signed up. The tour was led by a young woman dressed as a chambermaid from 1893, the year the hotel opened. Just by coincidence, her story went, she had served as chambermaid for every prominent person and celebrity who had ever stayed at the hotel, so she could recount their visits in great personal detail. Her guests had included FDR, Churchill, Charles Lindbergh, Princess Diana, the Beatles, and many other celebrities and stars of the entertainment world.
It had poured while we took the tour, but it was clearing up by the time we finished, so
we continued on down to the lower town. This is where Quebec was originally founded in 1608,
but the settlers later moved to the top of the adjacent hill (Cap Diamant) and built a walled city
for protection from attack by ships on the river. Like much of Old Quebec, most of the lower
town took on its present appearance in the 1970s as entrepreneurs began to appreciate the tourist
potential of North America's only walled city. In any event, they've done a great job.
Unfortunately, the funicular was out of operation, so we had to walk down. Of course,
that gave us the opportunity to use the "breakneck stairs" to descend the last ten yards or so,
historically a great adventure, but now very safe and tame for the tourists.
The stairs deposited us on rue du Petite-Champlain, without a doubt the most picturesque
street in Quebec. That street and many others nearby are absolutely charming, despite being
strictly for tourists. At the end of the street, we found the Maison Chevalier (1752, once a
merchant's home, then an inn (the London Coffee House), and now a museum with an exhibit
about early Quebec building construction and furniture.
Leaving the Maison Chevalier, we came to Place Royal, site of the original French settlement in 1608 and later its marketplace. Three sides of the square were filled by 17th and 18th century houses. They once belonged to wealthy merchants who lived above their ground floor shops. The church of Notre Dame des Victoires (1688) stood on the fourth side, but it was closed today.
We walked the entire length of the lower town, over to rue St. Paul, then up the steep hill back into the walled upper town several blocks from home. We saw rue St. Jean, City Hall, and much more of the upper town on our way. We rested in our room until after 7:30 when we headed for Le Vendome, a quality restaurant we'd seen about halfway through our descent to the lower town. This was a classic French restaurant, even a bit on the formal side. We shared hors d'oeuvres of pate and spinach fondue, followed by a cream of vegetable soup. For the main course, Jane had salmon, and I had veal Provencal. Finally, we each had a torte and coffee. We were so stuffed that it was a tough climb back to the upper town. As we passed one restaurant on rue St. Louis that caters to tour groups, there was loud German singing from the dozens of diners inside, and even a little schunkeln. We stopped at a few hotels on our way back looking for another place to stay, but we made no final decision. We got to our room around 10:30. |
