Ambassador, Ambience - Quebec

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Sunday 1^st October + Monday 2^ndOctober 2023 Quebec, Canada

Best day ever – so far!! We didn’t leave the ship until 11.00am after docking by the cement factory!! (Good first impression of Quebec!!) and then we had to get a shuttle bus for which there was a very long queue!! Got a taxi tour with ‘Alex’ for 80CA$ per hour and firsts went to Montmorency Falls. Impressive enough waterfall but nothing like Niagara Falls– difficult to believe they are 100ft higher!! What WAS impressive though was the walkway that went over the falls – you had a get a cable car up there I think and the queue was just too long so we contented ourselves with the walk to the bottom of the falls! We then had about a 30 minute drive along a highway, but all the trees were changing colour so it was really good – it was just so nice to see!

Onto our next stop Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre, a huge basilica church, one of Canada’s most sacred sites! In 1650 a group of sailors, who had survived a shipwreck, vowed to build a chapel here in honour of St Anne, and there has been a church standing here ever since. In 1922 the previous basilica was burnt down so the church of today was built in 1923.

It was definitely a Wow!! First of all we visited the vaults. Low ceilings and decorated mostly in blue with a lot of arches and gold mosaics! Lots of frescos! Impressive enough on its own but then we went upstairs!! It was just so vast and oh so tall!! Loads of high arches, mosaics on the ceilings and the stained-glass windows were brilliant, including the rose window at the front. There were crutches and walking aids on two of the pillars, that we learnt later that they belonged to people who were cured by St Anne!!

We then walked up to view the other church opposite, via the small chapel that was built in 1620! It was a pilgrimage route, consisting of the 14 stations of the Way of the Cross, with 6 bronze figures on each one, depicting the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ. Unfortunately we couldn’t get to the church at the top (It was probably a monastery or something!! )

Back to the old town (viewing the trees on the way back!) and had a quick tour of the Upper Old Town before Alex dropped us at the citadel. This is the biggest citadel in Northern America built by the English between 1820 and 1850 to defend the city. As it was such a lovely day we didn’t go in, but walked around the walls of the huge star shaped building which is still home to the famous Canadian regiment (Van Doos) Walked to the Government Building and gardens and then walked to the viewpoint in the Plains of Abraham opposite! This was a huge battlefield area where the British fought the French!!

Wandered back down the main street to Chateau Frontenac and then strolled along the enormous boardwalk (Dufferin Terrace – named after Lord Dufferin a governor general of Canada!) with its views of St Lawrence River! Wandered about all the Upper Old Town, viewing a modern Swiss made clock and having something to eat before going in a Christmas shop(!!) and then went into Montmorency Park, which is where the old government buildings used to be, before they were burnt down in 1854, and then got the last Funicular down to the Lower Old Town!

And yet another Wow!! It was dark by now so it will be nice to see it in daylight as well tomorrow, but it was a few quaint streets with loads of tourist shops, lots of fairy lights and murals all interspersed by Halloween scarecrows, houses, swings, seats and barrows full of pumpkins!! We then found the umbrellas street, with its bars and old fashioned lights before getting a Uber taxi (100% success!!) back to the ship about 9.30pm!

The next day we basically just wandered around!! We caught the shuttle bus to the other side of the grain stores (not cement as we first thought!) and walked into the Old Town. Wandered around the streets ( to see if we missed anything last night and then walked up the five flights of stairs to the Upper Old Town to see the Catholic Basilique Cathedrale Notre-Dame de Quebec! They were doing a lot of building work around it, so there wasn’t much to see from the outside, but inside was extremely nice with lots of gold and arches (not a patch on St Annes!!) We then went to see the Anglican Cathedrale Holy Trinity – not a patch on even the Catholic church!! Very plain!!

Went back to the Plains of Abraham as I wanted to see the Breakneck stairs, Quebecs oldest stairway, as it appeared on a map of Quebec, the village, in 1660 (not realising I had walked up them this morning!!) and realised we were just heading for the Escalier Cap Blanc, so we walked back down again and had a coffee in the Lower Old Town!! Wondered why there was part of the wall painted and after going down some steps and listening to what a tour guide was saying to a large group, turned round and all was revealed!! It was wall art!!

We had to be back at the ship for 1.30 so we sailed out of Quebec and up the St Lawrence River looking at the Montmorency Falls and all the different coloured trees on Isle d’Orleans.

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