Today was a big day! We spent most of our day exploring Quebec City, and all the fun things that entails. We started off by waking up at 7:15am so we could get to the car in time to move it before our parking expired at 8am. We successfully woke up on time and were able to get ready and out the door within half an hour, easily making it to the car before the parking expiry. We loaded up the car with our things and got on our way out of Montreal.
Traffic was pretty heavy coming out of Montreal since we were in the middle of rush hour, and conveniently my navigation decided to completely give up on us and just disappear right as I’m in a critical area for deciding where to turn. I ended up taking a wrong turn and having to circle back around after Claire re-input the navigation, and from there it was all good. Claire had a meeting to attend at noon, and with our estimated arrival time being approximately 11:55, we knew we wouldn’t have time to get her to that meeting if we went all the way to Quebec City, so we stopped at a Starbucks at 11:30 so she could attend the meeting.
Now that we’re out of Montreal, people speak less and less English, although even though the barista said she only spoke a little English, she was actually very good and we had no issues communicating with her. We got our food and drinks and sat down, though Claire sat off in a corner so she could talk in her meeting without bothering anyone too much, while I sat further up and uploaded blog entries.
After an hour and a half or so, Claire finished up her meeting, while I took a little longer to post some more blog posts. I got up to the 5th of May before my site started throwing an error when I tried to upload photos. Rather than spend time fixing it right away, I decided to just stop for now and fix it later, or hope it fixes itself (spoiler alert: it did). We walked back to the car and got back on the road to Quebec City, now only about 20 minutes away.
We finished our drive into Old Town Quebec City, crossing the St Lawrence over some huge bridges, then circling around to go below them. The bridges really show their scale when you get to drive both over and under them, and in our case there were two bridges right next to each other so it was even more grand. We drove along the river until we got to the port of Quebec City, where there was a paid parking lot that was close enough to Old Town Quebec City to walk in about 10 minutes.
We initially planned to park for 2 hours for $12, but I found out that it was $18.50 to park for the rest of the day (until midnight), so we decided to do that instead so we wouldn’t have to rush back and could spend as long as we wanted in the city. I was also able to pay with an app, which I like because I hate using those stupid finicky parking machines. From our parking, we walked up into the city and through the somewhat winding streets to the oldest commercial street in Canada, “Rue du Petit-Champlain”.
Rue du Petit-Champlain is a relatively short, thin street built up along a cliff with shops lining the sides. It’s not your typical tourist street either like you’d see in a place like Banff, since rather than tourist shop after tourist shop there’s actually a nice mix of places to eat, clothing stores, art stores, and more. Of course there’s also touristy things to do if you’d like, but it doesn’t overpower the street and make it seem disingenuous. There was also a Funicular Railway up the hill which we thought about going up, but decided to walk down the street first.
We walked down the street and looked at everything along the way, and upon making it to the end of the street we saw a restaurant named Casse-Cou, where we decided to stop in for lunch. The host started speaking to us in French (usually people can tell we speak English by overhearing us or just assuming), so I sheepishly replied “Tu parles anglais?” (I later learned that’s basically just saying “You speak English.”, compared to “Parlez-vous anglais?” which is a more formal “Do you speak English?”), to which she immediately started speaking English and apologized, saying she thought she heard us speaking French when we entered. We were all joking around a bit and she said she’d teach us French, so she was swapping between French and English and asking if we knew what words meant, and it was pretty fun.
We ordered our food and headed upstairs to sit. Claire got wine and a poutine, while I got my classic fish and chips. When the food arrived I was greeted with my favourite kind of fries, I don’t really know how to describe it but they’re crispy on the outside and soft on the inside, and have a bunch of bumps and ridges which add a nice texture to them. The fish was also really good, which is nice because usually the fish is pretty hit or miss in fish and chips, especially if you’re not near an ocean.
We finished our food and left the restaurant, walking next door to a relatively touristy shop, but one that had maple syrup on a stick at it. I haven’t had maple syrup on a stick in a long time, probably about 10 years, so we decided to give it a go. It’s quite simple to make, just a sheet of crushed ice with popsicle sticks laid along it, with a portable stove next to it that heats up maple syrup. The maple syrup is then poured onto the sticks as they’re turned in the ice, causing it to harden and stick to the popsicle stick, allowing you to then lick it off like lollipop. The staff member let me take an extra one too because the one I picked was the last one in the last batch and was pretty small compared to the new ones she made.
We ate our maple syrup as we walked back up the street towards the funicular again. I finished my first maple syrup stick and had a little bit of the second before realizing it was way too sweet to eat both, so I had to throw the extra one out unfortunately. We got back to the Funicular, which we had decided to ride up to the top of the hill since it was only $5 per person, and it would be a fun experience. We needed to go that way anyway on our way to a highly rated bakery about 20 minutes away.
The funicular was as expected, a short almost vertical ride up to the top of the hill, with the alternative being walking up steep stairs all the way around. It gave us some really nice views of the city and river, and was an enjoyable experience all around that I’d highly recommend to anyone in the area. Once at the top, we took some photos and then carried on towards the bakery we wanted to go to.
Along the way we stopped at a small gift store and looked around. It was pretty rough, but not bad. They had plywood on the floor and it was pretty messy, but if you were looking for Canadian related gifts, it would definitely do the trick. They had a bunch of license plates from Canadian provinces and US states that you could buy, but we couldn’t find any BC ones! I wouldn’t have bought one anyway, but it would have been nice to have some representation!
Afterward, we continued towards our bakery and came across a very nice church building, which we took some photos of and marveled at before continuing on. A few minutes later I realized we’d walked completely past the bakery, and it was actually across the street from the church we’d seen earlier. We backtracked a little bit and stopped in at the bakery. It was one of the most highly recommended bakeries in the area by people online, but we found it wasn’t actually that great. It was about 6pm, so their selection wasn’t too great, but it still didn’t really live up to the hype. Claire got a croissant and I got a chocolate chip cookie.
While having our snack at the bakery, I looked for a library we could sit at for a bit so I could work on these posts, and I found out that the church across the street was actually converted into a public library! We headed over there and it was absolutely beautiful. It was an extremely nice space and all of the original architecture was still in place, as only the floor space had been converted into the library. We found some seats at the back that had outlets and got to work on our things.
After about 45 minutes we decided to head out. We walked back the way we came, towards old town Quebec City, but took a right to go up the hill towards the parliament building. A short bit up the hill Claire mentioned she wanted to grab some stuff from the pharmacy and grocery store, so we looked up the closest ones, and they ended up being back near the library and bakery. So once again we backtracked a few minutes to those, where we got some instant noodles for the evening, and some drinks (iced tea and lemonade).
Once we finished shopping, we continued back up the hill again towards the parliament building, this time without any more backtracking. The hill was pretty steep, and the strong wind coming down it didn’t help that at all. Once we got to the top we were rewarded with the beautiful parliament building, standing 8 stories tall with statues all around. It reminds me of some of the US State Capitols I’ve visited, but more grand because it’s Canadian and we go big on these things.
We took some photos in front before sitting down on a bench nearby and sorting out our bags, and getting out the portable charger so I could charge my phone. From there we walked across the road toward the Citadelle of Québec, an old fort that finished construction in 1850, but is still actively used as a military base to this day. Along the way, a car stopped for us to cross the crosswalk, but just as we started to, some guy in a sports car passed the stopped car and sped through the crosswalk at way over the speed limit, which is an exceptionally stupid thing to do especially at a crosswalk where you can’t see how far across the people walking are.
We got to the Citadelle and walked around for a bit, walking on top of some of the fortifications and then down within them, into a courtyard where we could walk through a tunnel. Once in the tunnel, someone opened a window very quickly which spooked me a little, but he just wanted to tell us about the tours they offer, but only during the day and that if we came back tomorrow we could go on one of them.
From there we walked back down towards the car, ready to head to our accommodation for the night, when we got distracted by a playground that had a bunch of climbing ropes on it, along with two small trampolines! I’ve never seen a trampoline at a park, so I decided to give it a go. It wasn’t amazing, since I think I’m too heavy for it and so I hit the ground every time I bounced, but for a kid I’m sure it’s great.
Once we got back to the car we drove about 15 minutes to our accommodation, a 1 bedroom basement suite. Given it was only 1 bed, one of us would be sleeping on the floor using the blow up mattress, and since Claire had a bad time on it in Montreal, it was my turn to sleep on the floor. I was fine with it, especially with Claire’s repeated assurances that it actually is comfortable, she was just dealing with unrelated pains that made it hard to sleep on it.
We had our instant noodles, played some Risk of Rain on my Steam Deck which got its first use of the trip, and then headed to bed.