We are now in Quebec City, although it feels like we are in France such is the language the majority of people are speaking here – hence the blog post title which I thought I would translate into French for those who know French. It is very much what I imagine walking around the streets of Paris would be like such as cobbled streets, cafes with bright awnings and lots of quirky shops and galleries. Can you recognise what film the below picture (top-right) is from?

As has become the norm when reaching a new city, we spent our first day exploring. We are not quite near enough to walk to the main downtown area but it is easily reached by bus or taxi. 

We started with a walk around the ‘Walled City’ which refers to the fortification sites which surround the city and were built to protect the city from invaders. It involves a 4.6km walk along the ramparts and walls that circle Old Quebec.

There are lots of good views of the city and historical buildings and interesting sights along the way too.

Half way through the circuit we stopped to have a wander around the shops and cafes and then made our way down a lot of steps to reach the St Lawrence River. It is pretty steep and they even have an old fashioned funicular that takes you up and down if you don’t fancy the walk. 

Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac

Once we’d walked back up one of the other highlights of the walk is a long boardwalk which has impressive views of the water below and above sits the Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac which is supposedly the most photographed hotel in the world for its ‘castle-like’ exterior. There is a mini replica of this in the Epcot World Showcase Canada area in Disneyworld proving it is one of the most iconic and widely recognised buildings in Canada. 

We also stopped at the Notre-Dame de Quebec Basilica cathedral, the oldest catholic church in Canada.

As we had veered off on loads of tangents whilst walking the 4.6km walled city (including lunch and refreshment stops) it took us a while to get to the end of the circuit which was the Citadel which is an active military base and one of the official residences of the Governor of Canada. We didn’t go inside as you had to pay, and we’d already been inside the citadel we visited in Nova Scotia so figured it would be similar. 

All in all it had been a long and tiring day, made more draining by the 27 C temperature! 

Day 2 – Parc National De La Jacques-Cartier

Our second day we spent the day in Parc National De La Jacques-Cartier – yes that’s right, another National Park. It was about a 40 minute drive away so near enough to make it worth the trip. 

Our first trail of the day was called ‘Les Loups’ and was incredibly tough. It was colour coded as a ‘black trail’ on the map which is deemed the most challenging. It was 12km in total (out and back), with 447m elevation gain, with two viewpoints along the way, on one side the Jacques-Cartier valley and on the other side the Sautauriski valley. We decided to give it a go on the recommendation of the ranger…a decision Si may have regretted later on in the morning.

It was one of those walks where you think the end is in sight (in this case the two viewpoints) but it just seems to go on and on, not to mention up and up too. It wasn’t nearly as steep as the Grouse Grind in Vancouver (still etched in our memory!), it was more of a gradual climb interspersed with very steep and scrambly parts. It took about 3 and a 1/4 hours in total so very long and draining, but rewarding when you’ve done it. 

Oars at the ready…

As that took the whole morning we decided to take it more leisurely in the afternoon. After our dismal last attempt at kayaking in Oahu, we felt ready to try another water based activity. There was a rental place next to the river where you could rent kayaks, canoes or paddle boards so this time we opted for a canoe in the hope that we would fare better than the kayak. For starters the water was a lot calmer, it being a river and not the sea, but it is still a lot harder than it looks, even with minimal to no current. We only rented it for an hour which was plenty long enough to row along all of the available river space.

We did one further river walk, La Rivière-Cachee trail, before heading home.

We were exhausted when we got home and it wasn’t just our legs that were tired, our arms too from the paddling. We have a bike ride planned for tomorrow so we won’t have long to recover. More on that from Si in the next post. 

Apologies for the amount of photos on this post too – there was a lot to photograph!

Lucy