Our Long Weekend in Quebec City
There's nothing I love more than taking advantage of a government holiday to plan a quick trip out of town. A few years ago we used Veterans Day weekend to go to Paris, and this year, we used the same holiday weekend to visit Quebec City.
I've never been to Canada before (other than passing through an airport), and I had heard the architecture of Quebec City was like nothing you'll see in North America. Plus the fact that my husband has French Canadian roots and he speaks French well made it an easy destination choice.
We left town on Friday and basically everything that could go wrong with every flight did. Our first flight was super delayed. When we landed, we had 15 minutes to get off the plane, get through customs and find our next gate before the plane doors would close. Yes we were those people sprinting through the airport. We made it, just in time for the next flight to be delayed for mechanical issues.
It was a real journey but we got to Quebec eventually. We basically just found our hotel and went in search of food because we were starving.
We ended up at a great little spot with excellent French food. I've never eaten such excellent French onion soup in my life.
We strolled along Petit Champlain for a bit after dinner. A lot of the shops had already closed for the evening, but we saw lots of the initial set up for the holiday markets, which open around Thanksgiving.
On Saturday, Quebec was going to be getting the remnants of Hurricane Nicole, so we tried to strategically plan the day so we had plenty of opportunities to get out of the rain.
We started the morning with a tour of Parliament. The building itself was really beautiful and very ornate. I found it interesting to learn about how Canada's federal parliament operates versus the parliament in the provinces. You could draw a loose analogy to the differences of state and federal government in the U.S., but there are also some pretty big differences.
I also learned a lot more about the different populations that made up Quebec during its founding and formative times. I knew about the French and the British, but I didn't know the Quebec also had a large Irish population as a result of the potato famine.
Our guide explained that's why there are so many Irish pubs in Quebec.
The other really cool thing we did on Saturday was take a tour of the Morrin Centre. This building has been reincarnated multiple times over its life. It started as a prison, that mostly held people for public drunkenness or prostitution. Then it became a university, one of the early schools to have co-ed classes. And now it's a library.
Our tour guide was a hoot as she took us through some of the old classrooms and labs and eventually down into the old prison cells where you can still see people's names carved into the wood.
Apparently I was enjoying things so much I took zero pictures.
I'm not sure I would have found this tour if I hadn't been looking for things to do inside because of the weather, but I'm so glad we did it. It was really fun.
Since the rain had largely cleared out by that point, we spent the rest of the day strolling through the Plains of Abraham along the St. Lawrence River.
We had hoped to stop for a drink at the bar at Le Chateau Frontenac, which is the massive hotel that really helps define the skyline in Quebec. But there was a wedding at the hotel that day and everything was packed.
We did get to enjoy the holiday displays though before a delicious dinner featuring traditional Quebec food.
Sunday was another dubious weather day, but we were lucky and the rain mostly held off until the afternoon.
We just spent the day walking all over the city. We loosely followed a couple of self-guided walking tours from the Lonely Planet guide, and we very unintentionally found ourselves on a tour of the different churches in the city. Churches definitely tend to be some of the coolest architectural features in cities, but it made me laugh just how many of them we saw in a single day.
We started in the St-Jean Baptiste neighborhood outside the walled part of Quebec City.
We popped into this old church that's been converted to a public library. I obviously thought this was the coolest thing we saw all day.
All those library books surrounded by beautiful stained glass.
We also wandered through St-Roch, which is definitely a more modern part of town, and also happens to be home to the largest church in the city.
In the afternoon, we made our way back inside the city walls and explored some more.
We of course saw another church -- the Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica.
And then we spent more time walking along the water just taking in the views just as it started to rain.
We popped into a pub to warm up and dry off. One thing I loved about Quebec was that almost all the bars we went to had hot chocolate on the menu -- and this one had a "bowl" of hot chocolate on the menu.
Perfect for a cold rainy day!
Monday was our last full day, and the only day we were expecting to see the sun. But then instead of the sun, we got snow and crazy wind!
We took a tour of the Citadel, an active military base of the only French speaking regiment in the Canadian military, in the morning and it was mostly outside. I was glad I had worn many, many layers.
In the afternoon we took a boat ride across the St. Lawrence River. We had big plans to stop at a microbrewery on the other side for lunch and some poutine, but the brewery was closed!
So instead we climbed up this massive staircase to enjoy the view of the Quebec skyline.
These big staircases were super common throughout the city. Quebec is built on a massive cliff and these staircases, elevators and funiculars allow people to go between the upper and lower parts of town.
Stairs connecting St-Jean Baptiste and St-Roch.
Elevator connecting those same two neighborhoods
Funicular connecting upper and lower old town
And now we're back home and my legs are appreciating the fact that DC does not require nearly as much climbing to get around!
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