Day 2: Quebec City Escape Escape

Jovial local yokel

What another brilliant day today!! The weather was absolutely bloody perfect – unlike yesterday, it was blue skies and sunshine all the way, with a little crispness in the air but warm enough that you didn’t have to bundle up like a snowman to feel comfortable. Its also the absolute peak of fall season here, with the trees resplendent in all shades of reds, yellow and orange – the sunshine made them blaze all the brighter. Simply stunning. Apparently 60% of all the maple syrup products produced in Canada come from Quebec with 40% of that coming from Quebec city, so there are hundreds of thousands of sugar maple trees surrounding the city. Everywhere you look, it’s a riot of color.

Anyway, today’s fun was to embark on the “countryside” tour – after yesterday’s trot round inside the city walls, I thought it would be fun to break out and to explore a bit of the surrounding area. Here’s the itinerary for the tour – total tour time approx. 4 and a half hours:


Travel back in time to rural Quebec and enjoy the view! As you ride along the 40 kilometers of Chemin du Roy to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, you will pass through the many traditional villages of rural Québec. In Sainte-Annede- Beaupré, you will be given time to visit the world famous Shrine. You will also stop at the Montmorency Falls (1 1/2 times higher than Niagara Falls). Just as you think your day is over, you will be treated to a short visit on the Island of Orléans, discovered by Jacques Cartier in 1535, where the picturesque village of Sainte-Pétronille, with its 19th century rural atmosphere, waits to be rediscovered again.

Olde worlde 1850's style house on Ile d'Orleans

In addition to those delights, our bus tour was also to take in a local copper arty place (the obligatory “stop here and buy something” shop) as well as a chocolate shop AND an artisanal (of course) bakers. This tour did not sound as if it was going to suck.

It did, however, have the potential to sound exhausting, what with so much digestion and sitting about required, so I needed to make sure I got my strength up before I started. I also seemed to have assumed a one-woman mission to eat my way through as many French classics as possible, so, in keeping with my touristic duties today’s breakfast was crepes!

My tour was scheduled to depart from outside Chateau Frontenac at 10.30am, so enough time to get up, enjoy a leisurely French press (steady….I’m talking about coffee here…. alas) on the super comfy leather couch (I think I need to get one of those) and then amble along to Rue St Jean, where the local pancakery was located! It had gotten a fairly enthusiastic rating from my horse carriage driver yesterday, so I figured if it passed the local’s test, it was good enough for me.

Action crepe station

It was a pretty tiny place with arse-challenging small gaps between the tables so you had to squeeze your way into your seat (alas, sucking your tummy in does nothing to reduce the size of your behind, so the guy on the table next to mine was lucky my cheeks didn’t take out his café-au-lait). Perhaps it was a way to make sure people didn’t completely overindulge in crepey-deliciousness – there’d be no way you were getting back out if you did! Anyway, perusing the menu, it was as you’d expect – lots of choices and options that ultimately boiled down into a single choice – did you want a sweet crepe or a savory one? I opted sweet (it felt a bit too earlier for savoryness) and plumped for a sugar and butter crepe filled with fresh strawberries. Oh, and washed down with a small (cos I’m on a diet) mug of hot chocolate. For less than $5 for the crepe, it had to be the best deal in town!

 My table afforded me a great view of the cooking area, where the pancake magic happened – 4 big cast iron round hot plates that lovingly accepted the crepe batter and turned it into the chewy, yet softly yielding and crispy-edged deliciousness that was presented to me after a short wait. It was stuffed full to the brim with strawberries (apparently taking on the appearance of a toad!) and served with a little dollop of whipped cream. With the chaser of chocolat chaud, its gonna take me longer than 10 days to detox off this lot!! But to hell with it – I’m on holiday, right?

Not a toad in the hole

And why not?

After CrepeGate, it was time to waddle off and join my tour. Now I’ve really got my bearings straight, pretty much anywhere in the upper old town can be reached either via rue St Jean or the other one that runs at a right angle to my street, rue Saint Ursule (are you noticing a common theme here with street names?). Mumsie – not even you could get lost here. Probably.

Decisions, decisions...

I managed to find the bus easily enough, despite the Piccadilly Circus of tourist buses crammed onto the little bit of parking space in front of the Chateau Frontenac. I presented my coupon to the bus driver and tour guide, a genuinely funny guy called Gabe (short for Gabriel – he said he thought it made him sound tougher). I sat down right at the front (yey!) and had the space to myself (double yey!)) until a lady sat down next to me right at the last minute. Her name was Nina and she turned out to be a lovely lady – 56, ex-lawyer, retired for the last 6 years, single and now living her dream of living on a yacht and sailing round the world, exploring amazing places. She was very cool so we hung out throughout the tour – she even loaned me the use of her camera when my iPhone had died at our last stop, the Church of St. Anne (hopefully she’ll figure out how to send them to me).

There were probably 25 or so of us in total, so it didn’t feel too much like I was roaming with a massive pack of tourists and taking a half hour or so just to get everyone off and on the bus! The first stop was to take us outside of the city limits and over the suspension bridge to the Ile-d’Orleans – a beautiful rural island in the middle of the St Lawrence river. Other than the 19th century style houses and atmosphere on the island (it was discovered by Jacques Cartier in 1535 – and you thought he just made watches!), the main attraction we were going to see was the local chocolate factory! To be honest, I couldn’t actually see much manufacturing of chocolate going on, but the building itself was suitably historic and olde-worldy plus it smelled divine. I did my part to hold up the retail end of the business with some early festive choccy purchases and spent a very contented quarter hour or so, sitting outside in the warm sunshine, munching away on strawberry crèmes and admiring the fall leaves. Not a bad way to start a Saturday morning, I thought to myself. Well done, me.

Nothing like some chocolate spoons for
Christmas Eve hot choccy drinks….

Up up and away!

It was only a short stop, so before long, we all piled back on to the bus and headed back the way we came, back across the bridge and driving along the Chemin du Roy, which would take us to our next stop, the impressive Montmorency Falls. Though not quite as wide as Niagara, the falls at Montmorency are 1.5 times higher, so they are suitably “oOOo”-inspiring. To get to the top, we had to take a little cable car – it only took 5 mins or so but was a far better option than slogging up the 500 steps that were carved into the side of the hill opposite. (I wasn’t being lazy – we only had 45 mins at this stop, so I wouldn’t have had time…. Honest!).

As we were ascending up the hill, we had a brilliant view of the river laid out in front of us, including the Ile-d’Orleans where we’d just been plus a special bonus of fabulous rainbow, shimmering in the mist of the waterfall as it thundered over the edge and cascaded into the river below. At the top of the waterfall is an historic mansion, built in the mid 1800’s by some well-to-do chap who’s name I don’t remember, a gift shop (huzzah) and a lovely bridge that you can stroll across, and freak yourself out on, peering over the edge to the rapids below and wondering why anyone would attempt going over the falls in an oak barrel.  I thought about a game of pooh-sticks but realized that 1) it would be a fruitless endeavor and 2) no-one here would likely have the faintest idea what I was going on about.

Impressive panoramic shot, helpfully compressed to this tiny
image by my iPhone

Guess the loggers had the same idea about pooh-sticks after all!

Hanging out...

all the way right out there!!

Kick-ass waterfall with bonus rainbow.
*not pictured: pot of gold

After about 45mins or so, it was time to take the cable car back down and hop on to the bus for our next stop - this was to be a visit to a copper museum/art gallery where the Gilles family have been creating fabulous pieces made out of copper and is now the last family left practicing the art.  We had a short demo by the daughter of the original founder - it was a deceptively simple technique but one which obviously required a huge amount of skill to make it look so effortless.  Instead of me trying to explain it, I'll let her explain it and show you… :-)

Lady owner complete with rooster head

This is actually embossed silver - scene of
Jesus being tempted by the devil

I obviously had to make a purchase (to keep a dying art alive, don'tcha know) so i bought a copper cat fridge magnet (Daniel Johnson, just be quiet now) and an arty plate with a Canada emblem thing on it.  Looks lovely, no idea where i'll put.  Maybe on the bookcase next to the dueling knight bookends i bought from the Tower of London (also in search of a permanent home).

Anyway, the next stop after copper-time was to Marie's Bakery - an "artisan" bakery which has been producing bread locally for hundreds of years and - more importantly - the achingly sweet yet completely delicious maple sugar that gets slathered on the top of it!  Oh yes.  For just 95c a slice, you can have all the refined sugar your poor little Islets of Langerhans can handle!  Oh - and there was some historical interest to the stop too - the outdoor bread ovens and the little round store rooms and ice rooms that are built into the hillside but - given the choice between those and ooey-gooey bready treats, who cares about them?!  

Little processional church for when the locals
 all trek out to the burbs from Quebec City 

And yes, it was as good as you'd expect.  I just wish I'd come up with the idea of slapping some sugar onto a slice of bread and selling it for a dollar a pop to tourists!  Thats $25 for each loaf of bread!  Not a bad profit margin, right??

This could almost qualify as a sign from God...

Outdoor kitchen/storeroom/ice room

Insanity.  I can feel my blood sugar spiking just
looking at this picture. And yes, that is a cinnamon
 roll at the back.  And yes, that is a jar of maple sugar
that might just end up in someone's Xmas stocking...

After the bakery, frankly it was time for a snooze, but we had one last visit on our itinerary - this time to the Church of Saint Anne, an absolutely ENORMOUS church about 40kms outside of Quebec City.  Now, as i'm sure you're aware, I'm not a big one for churches but the architecture and decorations inside were very impressive, so I could certainly appreciate the craftsmanship that went into building it. Unfortunately, my iPhone chose this moment to give up the ghost so the only shot I have so far is of the one outside.  My new friend Nina lent me her camera, so I did take loads inside but, alas, as of writing this she hasn't sent them to me yet, so I don't know if i'll get any or not.  So, i'm afraid you'll just have to make do with this for now, blogwatchers, and simply use your imagination for the rest...

After getting back to the city around 3.30pm, I had a couple of hours before I had booked my final fun for the day - date night with myself at the best restaurant in town!  And - in one of those sheer coincidences of Auspicious Planning that i can't even take credit for - the restaurant was directly opposite my apartment!  45 seconds to get there, 1 min 30 secs to waddle back!  If you ever find yourself in Quebec City - 1) I hoped it was planned and you meant to be there and 2) visit this place for dinner!  Here's the link to the restaurant and the tasting menu I had:  http://www.saint-amour.com

http://www.saint-amour.com/discovery-menu,2,11

It was simply spectacular - and I'm pretty damned hard to please when it comes to overpriced meals at fancy-pants restaurants.  The butternut squash soup was probably one of the best things I've ever eaten - and yes, I was one of those people who took pictures of every course, but it was all for you, blogwatchers, so sit back, relax and enjoy the feast!!

And with that, it was the end of Day 2 of my little adventure.  Drawing the window shutters closed, i again enjoyed the view out of my bedroom window and went to bed smiling.  Thanks, Quebec City - you are a feast for the eyes and a tonic for the soul.  I heart you.