North America 2022 : Thursday September 15 Day 17 West to Montreal

Our third day in Quebec City was originally intended to be spent on the Morrin Centre tour, but, as noted in the previous couple of blog entries, that wasn’t possible as the tours didn’t (re)start until Friday September 16. So we decided to do something a bit different and went for a walk. This time around the outer, and lower, parts of the old town. We ran into the crowds streaming off a German cruise liner that was docked on the river. They must have spread out all over the city, or maybe half the ship hadn’t decided to get up as yet, as it didn’t seem that crowded where we were. Not as bad as our day in Tallinn in 2017 when the whole city was completely swamped with cruise ship tour groups filling up the street and not buying anything. On that occasion we just found ourselves a nice restaurant with tables on the street, bought ourselves something light to eat with a few drinks and just sat and watched the world go by. This time we were able to mingle without much difficulty.

Remembering our long haul up to the top of the Old Town a few days earlier we decided on taking the funicular to save our legs. At $4 each for about 30 seconds of ride time it was worth it.

And then it was just a matter of killing time until the mid-afternoon train from Quebec City to Montreal. It was the usual stuff: wandering the streets and looking into shops. We grabbed a spot of lunch and wandered back to the hotel to pick up our bags.

The stroll down to the railway station was short – only about 500 metres – and flat. The Canadian Railway company had this rule that no bag could be over 23kg, which didn’t make a lot of sense to us. It wasn’t as if the train would worry about an extra kilo or two, and, as there was to be no baggage service, we had to move our bags ourselves. In any event we shuffled some wine bottles around and evened everything out.

The trip was completely uneventful and we arrived some 20 minutes early. The arrangement was that we would be staying with our friends Henry Balen and Renee Sieber for the three days we would be in Montreal, and Henry had offered to come pick us up. All of that was achieved and we later settled in for a meal of baked red snapper and lots of wine.

Thank you presents were given, and discussions were had, all of which are now forgotten. It was good night.

 North America 2022 : Wednesday September 14 Day 16 Up and Down in Quebec City

On our second full day in Quebec City we decided to seek the more appropriate option of taking an Uber from the hotel to the upper level of the Old Town.

Robyn specifically wanted to have a look at the Morrin Centre, a cultural centre for English speakers. When we got there it was shut. The sign on the front and the information on their website had led us to believe that it would be open, but it wasn’t to be. Our original, and preferred plan was to take a tour of the building, and that wasn’t an option either, as staff shortages had put a stop to them. We discovered later that the tours were due to start on Friday September 16, the day after we left. Sometimes travel experiences are just a matter of timing, either good or bad.

Having some time to kill we took a walk around past Parliament House and down some city streets, looking into shops, checking out restaurants and generally just passing the time.

The main item on the agenda for the day was a Food Walking Tour starting at 11:30am. This tour was tighter in its walking schedule and lasted about two and a half hours. Our guide was a bright and cheerful university student earning extra money as a your guide. We started with a very strange deconstructed shepherd’s pie, followed by French onion soup, maple taffee, a croissant, another poutine (but the best we’ve had so far) and we finished off with a half measure of gin and maple biscuits.

The bunch of people on the walking tour was the usual mixture of Americans and Canadians, and it was here that we realised that we were yet to meet any Australians on this trip, other than the ones we already knew at the convention in Chicago. This seemed a little strange to us as we normally run into Australians everywhere. It only takes a word or two for us to realise we have fellow travellers, or they recognise my hat, but not this trip. Not one. We had certainly chatted with Canadians who had been to Australia, or always wanted to go there, but no natives in sight.

We had walked past the Morrin Centre near the end of our food tour and noticed that it was now open, so decided to take the opportunity to check it out. As suspected they had been having troubles with staffing, like everywhere else. We only got the chance to have a look at the library section, and that would have to suffice for Robyn to be satisfied.

Another long stroll across Old Town and the ramparts took us to the Fairmont Hotel – reportedly the most photographed hotel in the whole of North American – where we stopped for a drink, before wandering back to the hotel.

We tried the hotel’s restaurant suggestion again only for us to find they were fully booked. We cut our losses and ate across the street from our hotel.

North America 2022 : Tuesday September 13 Day 15 In and Around Quebec City

Once again we had decided to purchase the Hop-On-Hop-Off bus tickets. Our hotel was able to sell us a ticket for the bus and pointed us down the street where we found the requisite stop. Ten minutes later we were headed off on a loop around the Old Town of Quebec City.

The bus took us past all the major points of interest – the Plains of Abraham, Parliament House (no flags flying at half-mast here), the Cathedral, shopping streets and parks – as well as taking for a very brief pass over the river to the city of Levis on the other side.

Canada is supposed to be a bi-lingual country but here was no pretense here, everything was in French. There was the occasional commercial sign in English but all public signs were in French only.

We dropped off the bus when it got to the Tourist Information office. After that we wandered around the city for a few hours, finding interesting street sculpture, looking into shops from some narrow alleys, wandering along the top of the ramparts above the St Lawrence River, and generally getting a feel for the place.

By mid-afternoon we’d had enough and the calves were aching from the pounding they’d received that day, on top of the long, hard climb the night before. We grabbed the h-o-h-o bus again and did another loop, getting off at the hotel for a rest.

The hotel recommended a French Bistro a few minutes’ walk down the street so we headed off in that direction noting that all the eating places along the way were shut. As was the Bistro when we got there; Tuesdays in Quebec. We wandered around a bit further and found a street with three or four places all open and decided on a Vietnamese/Thai place which turned out to be both reasonable and reasonably cheap.

It was a slow walk home before an early night, something that was becoming more and more common on this trip.

North America 2022 : Monday September 12 Day 14 Onwards to Quebec City

Another long driving day as we headed towards Quebec City and the farthest point east in our trek across Canada.

Up early and drove off past Montreal and picked up the King’s Road and followed the St Lawrence River through to Quebec.

We dropped off the car at the airport and took an Uber to our hotel. When I was booking cars in Australia the only pickup and drop-off points offered were at the airports. Every time I tried to choose another location I was informed there were no cars available at that office. We had been lucky in Toronto in that we were able to change the pickup point to a place closer to our hotel. Not so in Quebec City.

The hotel was in the old part of town – which was good – but down on the lower level outside the wall – which was not.

Robyn had been recommended a particular restaurant in the Old Town and had made a booking for dinner. We should have taken an Uber. It was a long, hard walk up the hill that would probably have killed us in the first few days of the trip. As it was we barely made it.

Dinner was at Aux Anciens Canadien which served traditional Quebecois food which we washed down with a few beers and wines. The walk back to the hotel was nowhere near as taxing: a stroll through the Old Town under lights, including the Fairmont where we hoped to have a drink the following day. Downhill was so much easier than up.

Day 5 driving map:

North America 2022 : Sunday September 11 Day 13 Ottawa by Foot, Bus and Boat

Wherever possible Rob likes to jump on a city’s Hop-On-Hop-Off bus to get an idea of how the place’s attractions are related to each other. It provides us with some idea of what we might like to look at – beyond any research we might have done prior to arriving – and helps to set the priorities. Robyn likes to to do a full round of the bus circuit while deciding where to get off on the next loop. I’m generally too impatient for that.

We had already booked and paid for the Ottawa bus before leaving home so just needed to drop off at a bakery by the market, which we had discovered the night before, and then head over to the nearest bus stop. Ten minutes later we were sitting on the top deck, a few seats from the front. For the next 90 minutes or so we floated around the city seeing the outsides of buildings we would have liked to visit and listening to an informative commentary in both French and English.

The bus took us past a lot of interesting places but the first one we really wanted to get to was the National Gallery of Canada, located only a few blocks from the start/finish of the bus route.

We wandered around there for a few hours before catching the bus again for another circuit. We had wanted to visit Parliament House but it was shut as they observed some days of mourning for the death of Queen Elizabeth II.

We filled in time before dinner back at the hotel running through a load of washing before a few sandwiches. That took us up to a 90-minute canal boat cruise out from the centre of Ottawa, which showed us a lot of the expensive houses in the city, many belonging to various country’s ambassadors.

After the cruise we wandered back through the centre of the city, looking at the government buildings under lights – purple for the queen – and then headed back to the hotel.

We picked up a serving of poutine from Smoke’s Poutinerie across the road from the hotel. Robyn especially wanted to sample this “delicacy” a few times in Canada, though our first serving a few days before hadn’t been that good. This was better without being something that I would want to eat very often.

There is no driving map for this day as we didn’t drive anywhere.

North America 2022 : Saturday September 10 Day 12 Lakes, Islands and Ottawa

It was cool in the morning when we got up, but we decided to have breakfast outside in the garden anyway. We had a boat cruise organised for later that morning leaving from Gananoque, 20km or so down the river, so we had to get moving.

A better photo of the B&B

With the car packed we left early and drove around Kingston a bit, checking out some of the sights we’d seen the previous day again, before heading off to the boat.

We found a parking place in Gananoque and went for a walk prior to cruise time. It was a lovely little town. We hadn’t stayed there the previous night because the accommodation was way too expensive. We had about an hour to kill before the boat left so a quiet walk in the morning sunshine gave us a look at the local marina and a chat with a local Lions Club setting up for a sausage sizzle (though they didn’t call it that) associated with a public event happening on the green later that day.

But it was the 3-hour boat cruise – and we heard all of the Gilligan’s Island jokes – that we were looking forward to. I’m no sure if there were a thousand islands in the area, there were certainly a lot. The commentary on the boat informed us that the definition of an island was a piece of land that stayed, mostly, above water, was at least 1 sq foot in area and had a tree growing on it. The analyst side of my brain wanted a definition of a tree, but I figured it best not to ask that question.

We meandered through the islands along the various water channels that form that part of the St Lawrence River, straying over into US waters from time to time, gawking at the houses dotted on the islands, some big and some small – both houses and islands.

And before long we were back at our starting point and disembarking. It had been very informative, giving us a view of a way of life we were unfamiliar with and were never likely to experience. Capitalism run rampant? Most certainly.

Then it was off to Ottawa, the capital of Canada, where we aimed to stay for a couple of days. We checked into the hotel, and then took a wander down towards the centre of town where we had a pleasant drink in the bar of the Fairmont Hotel. Expensive? Yes, but an excellent way to finish the day, especially when it was topped off with a walk through the central market area.

Day 4 driving map: