TRAVELOGUE
Thursday, May 21, 2009 and Friday May 22, 2009
Québec City, Québec
Hello from Québec ~
We could not have asked for anything more than to have the last two days in Québec City. The weather has been 70 to 75 degrees, crystal blue skies spotted with puffy white clouds now and again and a slight breeze blowing. The weather has been gorgeous, and our time here has been just fascinating.
On Thursday, we had a leisurely morning and then had a walk and wine tasting tour in the afternoon just after lunch. There were only about 28 of us on this tour. We boarded our motor coach and headed east out of Québec City to Montmorency Falls, a beautiful river and huge water falls almost right alongside the highway. There are several smaller falls along the hillside before you reach the “big” ones where the gushing white winter snow melt is crashing over the falls and creating a huge mist as they reach the bottom of the falls and crash into the river below. We thought the view was just spectacular – but we were in for even more of a treat at our next destination – Canyon Ste. Anne. Both of these falls are taller than Niagara Falls – but, not as wide.
We disembarked our bus and walked down a path about a quarter of a mile to our “first” suspension bridge. The river was rushing in front of us and across the river was a very sturdy suspension bridge made of large steel cables and two inch thick planks to walk across. Below us the river fell down through the canyon, white water splashing and pounding over the rocks below into a deep canyon below where we could see two more suspension bridges, each at a lower level than the first one. We continued along the path to the second suspension bridge through the beautiful evergreen forest thick with moss ladened trees and thick undergrowth of ferns. There were several sets of wooden steps to climb down to reach the second suspension bridge. As we reached that point, we couldn’t help but notice the natural rainbow that was forming through the mist. With the white waters below and the beautiful green forest surrounding it, it was truly an incredible sight. We chose not to climb down the canyon as far as the third suspension bridge. We had been told that it was not as sturdy as the other two and felt we seeing it was good enough. We climbed up the hill from where our trek began up a wooden stairway where every so often there was a viewing platform and benches to rest on before you climbed further. The views kept getting more and more spectacular as we eventually reached the top. Needless to say, we really enjoyed our water once we got back to the concession stand!
From there, we went across the Ste. Lawrence River over to the Isle of Orleans. There we visited a small vineyard where the owner showed us the entire process of his winery and then to the best part – wine tasting! They really only make four wines – rouge – blanc and rose. But, they also make an aperitif wine that we both thought was quite nice, and so we purchased a bottle of that. We hope you will all come to enjoy it with us when we return home!
Last night we finished the last jigsaw puzzle and it appears they are not going to put out another one for us to start as the table is bare today. We thoroughly enjoyed working on those puzzles during this cruise in the evenings before dinner and have met many interesting people.
This morning we again had a leisurely morning and came back after breakfast and started our packing as we have to have our suitcases out in the hall tonight for disembarkation in Montreal tomorrow morning. One nice thing about Holland America is that they allow you to stay in your stateroom until your number and color are called.
After lunch today we set off for our last tour a walking historic tour of Québec City and tea at the Hotel Frontenac. We started our tour by going through the Museum de Québec where we saw the wooden hull of a sailing vessel that had been pulled out of the remains of a pier during an icy winter hundreds of years ago. It is so interesting to see these old artifacts. What is hard to imagine is how they sailed so many miles in those small ships with so many men on board.
From the museum we walked through lower Québec City which is the “old” town with the buildings still standing from hundreds of years ago. We heard many stories about the history as we walked through the cobblestone streets up to the vernicular where we rode the tram up to the upper city. I was lucky enough to be one of the last people to board, and so I was able to take several pictures out across the Ste. Lawrence River over towards the Isle of Orleans. Being that it was such a gorgeous day, I’m really hoping my pictures will show the true beauty of the day.
Our tour guide took us past Notre Dame, the Catholic Cathedral and the Anglican Church, all standing so majestically with their tall spirals against the blue skies and white clouds with the trees in full bloom with their bright green leaves of Spring. There were some beautiful trees with a purple/red color flower on them, something similar to the cherry blossoms we saw in Newport, but a much much richer color of red. It seemed that around every corner our tour guide took us, there was another bronze statue of someone else famous to the history of Québec City, some even mounted on marble.
We enjoyed tea around 3:00 p.m. at the Hotel Frontenac where we were served in a lovely café room. We had some homemade biscotti, a cream puff and a small opera cake with layers of chocolate and raspberry filling, along with two pieces of decadent chocolate.
The tour was over at that point, and Jim and I wanted to walk around the city a bit more and do a little more shopping before we headed back to the ship. We had such a nice afternoon and walked all the way down the hill from the Hotel Frontenac on this steep, winding cobblestone street that was just charming and so pleasant because it was no nice outside.
Dinner tonight is at 8:00 and is the “Master Chef’s Dinner”. Our dining stewards are going to sing and dance and juggle tableside as they serve a special meal created by the HAL Master Chef. It sounds like a lot of fun and one last photo opportunity!
Tomorrow we will disembark in Montreal and will have a tour of the city on our way to our hotel. We will be home Sunday around 5:00 p.m. It will certainly be fun going through all of the pictures once we get home and creating our newest album of memories.
This is our final Travelogue from this cruise. Thanks for coming along! We’ll see you soon!
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