Advertisement
Published: August 24th 2011
Edit Blog Post
On Sunday morning we made our way to Quebec City. Greyhound buses don't go north of Montreal and the train was quite expensive at $50 dollars each so luckily Marie told us about something called Amigo Express which is a lift sharing website, and basically people doing long drivers sell the spaces in their car. She helped us use it (entire website was in French) and we booked a ride to Quebec City with a friendly guy called Mathieu for only $15 each.
Mathieu dropped us off and then we got a bus (after much struggling to find which bus, as the only other person at the bus stop responded Non! to our Parlez-vous Anglais?) into downtown to find our hostel. Quebec City is full of steep hills and after walking up about 4 different ones with our big bags, we checked in and dropped off the bags. Quebec City HI Hostel is quite big and ac tually had a lot of families and older people staying, so had a different feel from hostels we had been in before. We then spent most of the rest of the day walking around Old Quebec City which is full of cobbled streets,
churches and other beautiful looking buildings including the famous Chateau Frontenac.
The next day was my birthday and as a treat we had booked in to a really nice 4* hotel elsewhere in Old Quebec, so that morning we checked out of the hostel and walked to the hotel and dropped off our bags as we couldn't check in til later. We then went out for breakfast at a cafe opposite the Chateau and again spent most of the afternoon just wandering around Old Quebec in the sunshine. I also managed to phone Mum & Dad with our international phone card who were in France on holiday so was great to be able to talkto them on my birthday! Around 3ish we went back to the hotel and checked in - the room was massive and really modern with cute little touches and much to Aled's delight had an iPod docking station with speakers. It also had a DVD library free of use so we decided to go out for dinner early (found a lovely restaurant near the Chateau) and then came back and spent most of the evening chilling and relaxing in the hotel room and watching films.
The next morning we headed back to the hostel and checked in and dropped off our bags (spending my birthday night in a hotel was nice but did involve a lot of carrying bags back and forth!!) We then headed up to the highest point in Old Quebec which had scenic views of the city (and was the view I had used as my desktop background on my laptop for the last few months before we left so was nice to see it in real life!!) and then went on a guided tour of the Chateau Frontenac.
There seemed to be lots of free entertainment going on and the hostel told us about a free Cirque De Soleil show that was happening most weekday evenings (Cirque De Soleil are from Montreal and therefore seem to be doing lots of free shows throughout the summer in Montreal and Quebec city) on a big outdoor stage under a highway. The show was amazing and it was great to be able to see them for free!
The next few days were just filled mostly by more wandering around Old Quebec, including a few free tours of the city and market
run by the hostel, a free sound and light show (no where near as good as the Ottawa one though!), walking around the Citadel and the gardens next to it (called Plains of Abraham), getting the Funiculaire down to the beautiful old town, and going on a tour of the old jail.
We spent one morning in the hostel internet cafe booking the following week in Halifax and Cabot Trail - luckily all the hostels had spaces! So we felt happier that the next week, at least was booked and with a much needed car rental!
We met a couple of cool English girls (Helen & Steph from Leicester) in the hostel a few days into our stay and we spent one evening drinking and playing Simpson's Cluedo with them and also went to see a free Johnny Cash tribute show at a bandstand in the gardens next to the Citadel (where there was a ridiculous amount of folding chairs and the average age was about 75) which was awesome. It was really nice to spend some time with English people our age for the first time in a while!!! Weirdly they have been the only English people
we have met so far - we thought there would be a lot more.
The next day we took a trip out to Montmorency Falls which was a nearby massive waterfall (higher than Niagara Falls as apparently all the Quebecois like to tell you) which was fairly impressive and has a walk round the whole thing - bridge above the top, stairs down to the bottom and then cable car back up across to the other side.
We decided to book an extra night (which sadly involved room changing - third room in this hostel) as our long train to Halifax was cheaper a day later than we wanted to leave. We spent our last day just hanging about in the hotel before getting a taxi to the train station (went halves on the price with a Aussie girl we'd just met at the hostel who happened to be getting the same train as us!).
Advertisement
Tot: 0.066s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 9; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0432s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
chris evans
non-member comment
good reading
Your blogs are excellent Beth although I was getting worried as we had not had a recent one for a while. I can appreciate that they take a while to write! Your experience in Quebec city sounded so great. Isn't it a fabulous place? By the way I finished One Day --the book you recommended. Great read thanks. Dave is in the hospital today having his gall bladder out so I am a bit nervous for him. Hope all goes well. Keep up the blogs and the wonderful photos. Has Aled got a love affair with canons? Chris and Dave