Posted on by Mitch&Katy

Final Day in Quebec City

Hey followers, today was our last full day in Quebec and Katy had an extensive list of sights to see before we departed this fine city. We woke at a reasonable hour and had cereal in our BnB as a measure of saving money.

Firstly we walked through the old town and tick off the sights we hadn’t stumbled across just yet. We started with Le Petite Champlain which involved a few of the cobblestone streets and a couple of the plazas. Royal PlaΔ‡e andSt Johns Gate on the old town walls.

From the old town walls we got a great view of both the old town and the new town as shown in the pictures above. The wall obviously separates the new and old towns.

From here we walked directly uphill for what seemed like an age to the Plains of Abraham. This is the site of many battles. If anyone who knows the correct history of Quebec City is reading please correct me if I’m wrong. From my understanding the French settled here on the east coast in the late 1600s, the British invaded in the late 1700s and successfully made it British soil. All while the Americans were also trying to invade Quebec. As it was on the east coast it made it a great center for boat trade etc, hence all the fighting for it.

Anyway the Plains de Abraham were nothing but plains. Lovely to walk but not much else to see apart from a few statues. It’s a very significant historical site so we walked through it but there wasn’t much to see beyond the fields of grass.

We then walked through a few various attractions through the city including the old town walls, local murals, the Joan of Arc statue and streets of the old town.

We went home for a rest after our extensive personal walking tour of both old and new Quebec. Katy watched an episode from the new season of “Black Mirror” on Netflix on my word, and we very much enjoyed the rest.

Afterwards we walked to a nearby pub to watch the US Open golf and have a drink before dinner. We sat down in a lovely spacious atmospheric pub only to find out it was playing “sports news” and not the golf and also it didn’t have a happy hour because it was Saturday. We (begrudgingly) sipped down our delicious drink and headed to a fancy resteraunt we had mad reservations for dinner. We were soaking wet as we arrived to our pre organised booking to one of the fanciest resteraunts in Quebec City. We decided to do a fancy dinner, not for any reason other than we’ve been fairly cheap through this part of our holiday and “treat yo’self” was ringing loudly in both our heads. I had a duck confit and Katy the Fillet Mignon steak after our beef carpaccio entree. We even accompanied it with a few wines which is very unlike us. I particularly like the strawberry wine. I apologise for the profound lack of photography. We legitimately enjoyed our meal so much we forgot to take photos before it was too late.

After dinner we went to the Irish pub next door to our accommodation to watch the golf and chill out. After a rough few days of learning of family health problems back in Australia it was lovely to unwind and relax without a worry.

The next day arose and we jumped in our car and headed for Ottawa. We had 4.5 hours driving ahead of us and a full tank of fuel. Today is Father’s Day in Canada so we were planning to make it back to Ottawa for a Sunday afternoon BBQ. We stopped at a waterfall called Montmorency Waterfall on our way through towards Ottawa. Katy had read that it is bigger than Niagara Falls but I couldn’t see it. Upon requesting the statistics again she couldn’t produce them so you can make up your mind for yourselves using our pictures.

There was another suspension bridge across the top so you could get the best view of the millions of litres of water rushing down underneath you. This Canada trip really isn’t doing much for my fear of heights is it. Once again I didn’t let the fear stop me and persisted, edging forward onto that bridge as the 6 years old behind me are bouncing past! 😱

The drive felt slow and unusually took longer than it was meant to. Unsure if I left my lead foot at home or that google maps estimation was out but it ended up taking about 6 hours with a stop instead of 5 hours. We made it back to Kyrie and Dave’s house for a Father’s Day dinner with some of the family I hadn’t met. After the people at dinner dispersed and headed home the youngens played another game of “Mexican Train Dominoes” and this time I was determined not to be beaten by a single point like at the cottage. All my might went into this game and I can safely say I scraped through, winning by a narrow 2 points with Kyrie close behind. I’d like to thank my family and all my supporters during my gruelling Mexican Train career and have decided to retire my profession on a win 😎

Tomorrow we drive another 5 hours to Toronto. Speak soon!

M πŸ™ƒ

Posted on by Mitch&Katy · 1 Comment

Day 19 – A storm in LΓ©vis

Bonjour!

Today we woke up and before I even opened my eyes could hear the rain pouring outside. So I did what everyone who’s on holiday would do. I rolled over and went back to sleep. In fairness – Mitch had that awful (no) sleep in the hostel the night before so he was in need of a lie in.

By late morning we had both woken up, checked the golf (c’mon Adam Scott!) and gotten ready for the rest of the day. We got some lunch from a nearby cafe (honestly our air BnB couldn’t be in a better location) and decided on what to do today. The weather was predicted to be storming but it was beautiful sunshine when we left the cafe so we headed to the port to board the ferry to LΓ©vis.

On the way we spotted a what we though was a bunch of police cars chasing someone buuuuut it turned out to be a police escort for a road race. We cheered them on while waiting to cross the road.

The return trip to LΓ©vis (which is a little city across the river from Quebec City) was cheap and quick. We jumped on just as they were closing the doors and headed upstairs to take in the view. This is primarily the reason for getting the ferry is the view of the city is beautiful as you pull away.

Here’s me and Mitch in the sun on the ferry…

And here are the storm clouds rolling in.

And here is LΓ©vis, 5 mins after we got off the ferry.

Like I said, we had seen that it was meant to storm but the inner optimist in me believed that the sunshine would win out. Clearly it didn’t.

Anyway we waited probably 15/20 mins for the storm to calm down and headed to a micro Brewery across from the ferry terminal. The rain had pretty much halted once we finished our drinks. We explored LΓ©vis a bit and I’ll be honest. It’s boring af. I had read that it’s a dinky little villagey-city; and nice to explore but to be honest; there was houses and not much else.

Saying that, I’m paining my future home this colour.

We did have a google of what to do and came up with “look at the view of Quebec from this side of the river”. So with that we headed back to our side and faired much better. Example 1 – here is me back in the sun.

We walked around La Basse-Ville which is the lower part of the city and where the original settlement was founded. It’s very cute with lots of cobbled streets, steep staircases and fancy restaurants. We passed a fudgerie (yes that’s a thing) and you know we stopped to buy some; as I type this it’s almost finished. We also booked in for dinner tomorrow at one of the restaurants we passed. This can be our 1 fancy meal of the holiday.

For tonight though we had Chinese. It’s not got anything on paisley Chinese but it was yummy none the less. After this we headed to the bar in Le ChΓ’teau Frontenac – 1608 – for a (very pricey) cocktail with a view.

Another day, no dolla – Katy xxx

Posted on by Mitch&Katy

Quebec City

Last night I had a very rough sleep as we were in our first and only youth hostel. It costs us $60 for the night and we were only in Montreal for the night so figured it would be fine. The hostel itself was lovely, clean and had wonderful facilities. Had a rooftop beer garden and two separate jacuzzis on the roof, a fully equipped kitchen, bar with free pool table and a car park. The problem wasn’t with the place itself but more the fact we were sleeping in a dorm with 10 other people. I was sweltering hot and didn’t get actually asleep until around 5am which is horrendous. As far as I’m aware Katy didn’t manage too badly and had a nice sleep, I tend to really struggle to sleep when it’s hot and there’s no fan/air con etc.

Anyway we drove the 2.5 hours to Quebec City which is the most eastern point of our Canada trip. As we arrive to the cobblestone streets it really felt like we were arriving in a different country. Everything is 100% French speaking and even the architecture has a European feel to it. It’s magnificently unique with lots to see and a surprising amount of things to do. There seems to be a lot of young people around too. Haven’t yet figured out if it’s because there’s a big uni or if everyone was on school excursions πŸ˜‚

We are staying at a lovely studio Airbnb right in the middle of “old town” Quebec City which is World Heritage Listed. We couldn’t be any more central it’s perfect. Our little studio is small and perfect for what we need too. The lovely French lady let us leave our bags while she cleaned it and we went exploring.

While we waited to check in we explored all the alleyways and market stalls we could find. Just letting ourselves wander without worrying about where we actually ended up. As expected, we stumbled across most things that we had read were worth seeing. We walked through what is now the Fairmont Hotel (formerly Le Chateau Frontenac). It’s a hotel in the old city center that was originally used as a secure secret conference center for Winston Churchill and the military to make important decisions on World War 2. It’s now transformed into a 5 star hotel in all its opulence. It has various shops and bars and some very interesting art galleries too.

I know mum loves Salvador Dali and they were selling these sculptures for around $60,000. I even got in trouble for taking photos. We glanced passed the bars as we knew we couldn’t afford a cocktail on our backpackers budget but they were all very quaint.

We then kept walking and found ourselves on this pier walk that goes around the old Citadel. I was hoping to check out the citadel but it’s all closed for what looks like safety reasons so I wonder if they’ll eventually turn that into a museum as well.

From the back of the citadel you look over the old town and can see the landscape in all its beauty.

I have included this next photo for two reasons. As you know I’m growing my hair so you can see it’s starting to look nicer. And also I’m modelling my second lululemon garment. My shorts!

This was the landscape. You can see the old town underneath and Le Chateau Forntenac in the background

We headed back and rested in our Airbnb before heading out for dinner and to watch the Raptors basketball game. The 6th game out of the finals series. THEY WON! They won a very tense game that was neck and neck the entire way and this mean that they’ve won the entire finals series 4-2 in a best of 7 series. The first time the Toronto Raptors have ever won the NBA Championship.

We had a great night watching the basketball on the big screen sharing a delicious nachos over a few drinks in the nearest Irish pub.

Still have two more days in Quebec City so we will be exploring and eating our way through the best parts of what seems to be a very foody city πŸ˜‹

Au Revoir

M πŸ™‚