Wednesday and Thursday September 9 and 10, 2015

Two excellent days in Quebec City. Yesterday (Wednesday) we took a “free” walking tour around the old city. The guide was not as good or as funny as other “free” tours we took in Europe, but he did give us a good history of Quebec, Quebec City and some ideas of what to see and other places to visit in Quebec City. After the tour we decided to spend another day in Quebec City, although we had been here before it was 15 years ago.

Although we are in a dorm room, we are the only two people in it. This is a good thing because Ralf was snoring up a storm last night and probably woke up the rest of the inhabitants in the hostel. He would have definitely woken up any one else in the room.

Quebec City is a beautiful, historic city.

There are some great buildings.

One more interesting thing to note is the Cirque du Soleil started in Quebec City.  This sculpture is from the Alegria performance.

We were asked by a British couple why the Plains of Abraham didn’t have a better description of the battle that took place! The Plains of Abraham is where the British beat the French in 1759. They may have won the battle, but they certainly didn’t win the war. Quebec is still very much a French Province and very proud of it.

They are doing some major renovations to the citadel and the walls.

We had a nice lunch in a small restaurant around the corner from the hostel. It rained all afternoon, after lunch and after we had booked into the hostel for an extra night, we got the boring stuff done – washing, shopping etc. We planned our route for the next few days and sent out emails for warmshowers. Although there is a hostel in Riviere du Loup, which we will stay in, if the warmshowers come back as negatives.

Today (Thursday) we had a lovely breakfast of brie omelettes. Then we headed out to the old city and just wandered around. It is really nice to have the time to do that.

We spotted a couple of the riders that are taking part in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec and I overheard an American saying that it looked like the Tour de France. I told them about the Grand Prix Cycliste de Quebec that was going to happen tomorrow. Deb and Joe seemed really interested in watching part of the race. They were from South Carolina. It occurred to me we should find out from them when their weather changed to winter weather. Deb said that the weather had been changing and they couldn’t say when it would get cold, but cold to them is about 60 degrees F and that is now happening around December time.

We had a great chat with them, Joe asked lots of questions about our trip, the funniest was “how do you manage to not argue on a trip like this?” We both admitted that we do have our off days, but if we notice the other is not in a good mood, we let them be in a bad mood. If I know I haven’t done anything to annoy Ralf and he has just got up on the wrong side of the bed, I just leave him to it and vice versa. Joe laughed and said \”we haven’t learnt that yet, we argue for half an hour to find out what is wrong with the other person\”! They have been married for 44 years and we told them we were married for 30 years. They were a really nice couple.

Maybe if we can get past New York and Pennsylvania before it starts to snow, we might be able to get to Florida and complete the “square” of North America. I think we have almost decided to carry on. Ralf said last night if the weather turns against us we just get on a plane and fly to Toronto.

A lot of the cyclists were cycling the route today. Ralf really wanted to join them on his loaded touring bike, especially when we saw three teams heading up the hill back to their hotel the Chateau Frontenac.

All the teams are staying at the Hotel Frontenac, basic price for a room is $300.00 going up to a grand price of $1,200.00.  I wonder what you get for $1,200.00?  It is an amazing building.

As we were coming back to the hostel, we spotted another sculpture, of three fat ladies. The first one we saw in Montreal was called the \”Talking Ladies\”, this is one called \”The Letter\”.  I think they are great.

We got back to the hostel at 5:30 pm I will be able to update the blog tonight. Tomorrow we take the ferry to Levis and then head along the south side of the St. Lawrence.

Interesting dinner tonight, we had bought some tortellini and a rose sauce with some nice olive chiabattas. However, we put the wrong date on the basket and the sauce and chiabattas went into the free basket – they were gone when we wanted to cook dinner. Ralf had to go to the convenience store and had to buy some more sauce, the convenience store didn\’t have a great selection- tomato sauce!