Québec City

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I was up early this morning, and the first thing I did was check with reception to see if the hotel in Boston had returned my call. They hadn't, and so I rang them up again. They tried to pass me onto Housekeeping again, but I wouldn't have any of it. I asked that they check there and then. They then went off and checked, with me waiting on the line. Five minutes later, the member of staff came back, and said that no camera had been found in the room. I was gutted, though honestly had expected it not to be handed in. That meant I had lost my amazing photos from New York, me at Liberty Island, all my photos from the time in Boston too. I now vow to go back there, and to take even better photos than those I had taken.

And so I was now down, but I wasn't going to let it ruin my time. I would have to go and get another one today. However, after breakfast we had a driving city tour straight away. Our guide came onto the bus and we drove around the Plains of Abraham, The Citadelle, a military fortress dating back to 1820, and the Hôtel du Parlement.

Once this driving tour was over, we then had a different guide for our walking tour, which started off near Château Frontenac, the world-famous hotel, whose claim to fame was that it held two historic conferences in 1943 and 1944, attended by Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill. The château was right next to the site where the World Heritage Site bronze, granite and glass monument was situated. This was built to commemorate this prestigious honour in 1985. It is something I felt Québec was very proud of. From here we checked out Quartier Petit Champlain with its staircase, Terrasse Dufferin, the Restaurant aux Anciens Canadiens (with it's striking red roof), Cathedral Holy Trinity, L'hôtel de ville de Québec (Québec's city hall), Fresque des Québecois, and the Place-Royale. Place-Royale was a lovely place, and was definitely my favourite part of Québec.

After this, we all split up. My main aim was to find a camera shop. I walked along Rue Sainte-Jean, and found an electronics shop, where they sold digital cameras. It was the only place I could find, and so I bought the most suitable one for me, and an extra memory card too. Then I went and had lunch at one of the Maccy D's there. That was a nice meal for a change.

I bought some more souvenirs, some shirts, and then walked over to the Notre-Dame de Québec Basilica-Cathedral, located on rue De Buade. This was a lovely cathedral, and is in fact the oldest parish in North America. The cathedral had been on this site since 1647, but had been destroyed twice previously through fires. It was an amazing site. I also walked along to Place-Royale, where the final scene from 'Catch Me If You Can' was filmed. Place-Royale was special, as this was where the earliest settlement of Québec began, back in 1608. Rich merchants settled here, and over the four centuries has seen it's fair share of hardship, decline, but also rich growth.

Then I went along the Promenade where the Queen Elizabeth cruise liner was moored. From here I stopped at the Galleire Begin, where I bought two art prints, then on to Quartier Petit-Champlain, home to some lovely quaint shops, some of which had painters, and tradesmen, producing their wares. Then up on the funicular (a cross between a chairlift and an escalator, which took me up to Château Frontenac, and the upper level of Vieux-Québec once more. From here I walked along Terrasse Dufferin, constructed back in 1838, by Lord Durham, on the same site as fort Saint-Louis in 1620, and later Montmagny castle, which stood for 200 years, before being destroyed by fire.

Then I walked along Promenade des Gouveneurs, which borders La Citadelle.

This didn't really lead anywhere, and as time was getting on, I decided to turn back and get to the pick-up point.

Tonight, we were going to the Restaurant L'Astral, which is a revolving restaurant situated at the top of the Loews Le Concorde hotel. This was a nice classy restaurant. Amongst those on my table tonight were Maxine, Breda, Liz and Jesse. The meal wasn't really a meal, but a buffet. It was all self-service, and some of the food wasn't easy to tell what it was. Still it was funny with Maxine on the table. We had a right laugh with everyone that night. She kept saying she couldn't believe that there was another Essex bod on the tour.

Anyway, after the meal we headed back to our hotel, though a large number of us headed to a sports bar just a short walk from our hotel. It was a nice place, and we pretty much had it all to ourselves. It was great, and also there was a jukebox there, so we had our own favourite music playing all night. It was a late one, but was fun. Patrick got a large jug of Bud beer too. I'm not sure if he finished it all by himself.

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