Our Trip to Canada: Exploring Quebec City, Part 1

We didn’t spend all of our time in Montreal, though we could have. We’ve got a list of things in Montreal that we plan to do and/or see the next time we’re there, after all. It’s a fun city to visit, even if I don’t speak the language.

When we were planning this trip I would tell people that we were going to Montreal and they’d say, “But you don’t speak French!” which was a mystifying thing to say. “Neither do they,” I’d reply. “Ask any Parisian.” It is true that Québecois is the default language in Montreal, but it is also true that if you greet people with “bonjour!” and then politely ask if they speak English, pretty much everyone will switch over to something I can understand and I was grateful for that fact. What can I say? Between being hopelessly monolingual and being utterly incapable of comprehending a beverage of less than 20 ounces (with free refills), I’m pretty easy to spot as an American.

Québecois is also the default language in Quebec City, oddly enough. I KNOW! Says so right on the tin. And the people there were similarly willing to indulge an American visitor’s linguistic shortcomings, so it turned out well for me.

Geoff and Dave picked us up at our hotel for the 3.5-hour drive to Quebec City, which I was convinced was south of Montreal until I finally looked at a map and discovered that no it’s very much not. It is in fact the furthest north I have ever been on the North American continent, surpassing my previous record of Bayfield, Wisconsin by one minute of latitude according to the quick internet search I just did. It’s still a long way south of Stockholm, my overall record, but it felt like a victory anyway. You need to take the wins when you find them in these parlous times.

It was a grey rainy day, but the drive went smoothly and the scenery flowed by.

At some point we stopped for gas and I wandered into the attached convenience store where I ended up having a lovely conversation with the clerk – Marie-Loup, according to her nametag – and another customer, who did not have a nametag at all, though in fairness neither did I. Marie-Loup immediately clocked me as a visitor and asked about our time in Quebec, which spiraled out into a lot of different things. It’s nice to have these moments with strangers, I think. Marie-Loup is a woman of strong opinions forthrightly expressed. She pointed out the bags of cheese curds for sale and I told her that as a Wisconsin resident I was familiar with such things, and then she looked at me very seriously and warned me against putting them in the refrigerator. “It ruins them!” she said. She also noted that I was buying a bag of ketchup-flavored potato chips – a surprisingly tasty Canadian specialty that I stumbled across last summer – and let me know that Miss Vicky’s was the brand to beat for those. They did not have them at the little shop, but later I bought a bag and you know what? Marie-Loup was spot on. They are indeed the brand to beat.

We got to Quebec City well before we were allowed to check in to the house we’d rented for the next few days, so we found a place to park in the downtown area by the river and headed up into the city. And I do mean up – the place is built on a bluff and you spend a lot of time going up and down, far more so than Montreal and almost as much as Porto. The bluff is in fact part of Quebec City’s historical claim to fame, a critical factor in how the struggle between the English and French turned out during the Seven Years War. Short version: the French defenders figured nobody would be insane enough to try to climb that bluff directly while wearing full 18th-century military kit, but it turned out the English were EXACTLY that insane and that is a good part of why Canada has Charles III on its coins these days. Having now seen from below the spot on the bluff where the English soldiers made their climb, I have to say I don’t blame the French defenders at all.

We found a pathway up toward the higher elevations – one lined with old buildings and cobblestones, and on one street marked in various places to indicate where the shoreline for the St. Lawrence River was located at different points in the city’s history. You forget that shorelines move if you don’t think about them much.

Eventually we located a winding road that led almost directly upward – around a curve, up the hill, further up some stairs, across a wooden bridge of sorts, up a few more stairs, and then out into the city proper. By that point we were at least two or three entire houses higher than the rooftops of the ones down by the shoreline.

If you take the wooden bridge back over the road you came up there’s a little space with a couple of streetlamps tied together, and you have to appreciate the goofiness of that. At the end of this series of posts there will be one on the street art in both cities, but this piece really belongs in its setting.

Eventually you get to the top, where the platform widens out into a promenade of sorts, high above the river though level with the rest of the city.

And at that point you are at the Hotel Frontenac.

According to any number of sources that we looked at prior to this trip, the Hotel Frontenac is the most photographed hotel in the world. It was built by wealthy people for wealthy people and accordingly it has a commanding view of the riverfront because that’s what wealthy people do. It is striking in itself, and because of how the city is laid it out it tends to appear in the background of a lot of photos as well. It also has a Starbucks tucked into the side facing the promenade, and on a fairly chilly, grey, and rainy afternoon that seemed like a solid idea so we found the entrance and went inside so those who drink coffee could warm themselves up with it. There’s a little sitting area next to it that looks more like a hotel waiting room than a restaurant – probably by design – and they’re very clear that the Starbucks riffraff does not get access to the hotel proper through the connecting door. For that you have to go around the building to the main entrance.

They let anyone in the front door, though. This was actually very nice to see, given the narrow-minded bigotry so popular in the US these days. Gives one hope, it does.

We explored the lobby a bit – it’s far more elegant than anyplace I’d likely stay and even includes a few shops that I couldn’t afford. There are also tours given by costumed docents for those so inclined.

From there we headed out into the city proper, or at least the older and more visited parts of it. The old part of Quebec City has a very European feel to it, and it was a lot of fun to walk around. We found a few shops that were interesting, including Geoff’s favorite – a store that focuses on Christmas stuff year-round – and one that sold a wide variety of goods made with maple syrup. In another shop I got my keychain for Quebec City, the one souvenir I end up buying in my travels these days.

Cities look different on rainy days, and I love that fact.

On our way back to the car we ended up cutting through a fort that was apparently used for artillery at some point. We thought we’d get back to it when it was fully open for visiting but never did. Perhaps next time.

By this point it was past our check in time so we headed out to find the house where we’d be staying. You get there by following a number of increasingly smaller roads until you get to a residential area and you see the house on the corner with all the white flowers in the yard, and then you turn right and go down two blocks and there you are. Easy.

I’ve stayed in a bunch of AirB&B houses but this one is one of the few that actually felt like someone’s home that they were just letting out now and then rather than a specific purchase to rent to others. There were family photos and children’s drawings on the wall, toys neatly scattered about, and a general feeling that people actually lived there. It was a very nice place, and we took good care of it.

Our first order of business was to go grocery shopping, since we’d be there for a few days and didn’t want to go out for every meal. Fortunately, I enjoy that sort of thing, so when we found the big IGA I was very much in my element. I love going to grocery stores when I travel, seeing all the things that people in those places consider normal food – it’s never quite what I find in the groceries in Our Little Town, and that’s what makes it interesting.

I will say, however, that on this day we were not interested in cooking dinner for ourselves. A quick internet search revealed an Indian take-out place not too far from our house, so after we left the IGA we headed over. It took a bit to find it, though, because even when GoogleMaps said we were in front of it we thought to ourselves, “Nah, that can’t be right.” And yet it was.

To get to Le Jardin du Masala you have to go into a side entrance of what is, during normal business hours, an English-language high school and then follow the hand-written arrows taped to the walls to get to the school cafeteria where you will find two people working behind the counter. We got there before the rush, apparently, because if the reviews are to be believed the wait times can be significant. We did spend some time in the cafeteria looking at the various educational displays on the walls and the posters still hanging on the corkboard (including a flyer for the school’s spring play, entitled Alice’s Adventures With Poorly Cooked Cafeteria Seafood, which I would have paid money to see) before collecting our food and heading back to the house.

It was really, really good. If you find yourself in Quebec City and in the mood for Indian food, you should go. Skip the naan, but do not miss the paneer pulao.

One of the joys of traveling with family and friends is that you don’t feel pressured to do much once the day is over, so we spent the rest of the evening hanging out in the house, reading, scrolling, and in general not doing much of anything. And that’s a good thing for a vacation.

Our next day began slowly, with breakfast and general hanging out, until we drove back to the old part of Quebec City again and found a parking spot right by the Museum of the Plains of Abraham – a bit of the city that is currently under all sorts of construction, so it’s surprisingly easy to find parking because most people assume there isn’t any to be had. Let that be a lesson.

Our first goal was to get to the Citadel.

La Citadelle de Québec dates back to 1608 in one form or another, though the current incarnation was built in the second quarter of the 19th century. It remains an active military base even today, which is why you can’t just wander in and do the Tourist Thing. First you have to find the entrance, which is located at the top of a remarkably tall hill. At some point you will pass an ornately dressed guard standing in front of a small box, which is how you know that you have entered a Military Zone. Once inside the Zone you have to find the ticket platform, which looks pretty much exactly like it sounds and provides much needed shade on a sunny day. At that point you will be given a choice – you can tour the military side of the Citadel, which involves walking around the grounds and looking at all of the cannon and such, or you can take the house tour of the Governor General’s mansion, which is what the majority of our group decided was the better plan.

At that point we were introduced to Edwin, our tour guide, who told us that we were to stick with him at all times and wear the sticker they gave us to let people know we were Tourists and not spies or saboteurs. It has to be said that Edwin gave us a first-rate tour of the Governor-General’s mansion, walking us through all of the rooms where the UK’s representative in Canada would be if she were, in fact, in the country, and being exquisitely correct when using the formal titles of anyone mentioned in the tour. The mansion was one of the two attractions of the day where I didn’t really take photos, oddly enough, but I did get some of the grounds. They were very nicely kept grounds, with the names of World War I battles engraved onto the buildings and cannon scattered about here and there. In the background of the first and the last two photos below you can see the top of the Hotel Frontenac because you’re in Quebec City and of course you can.

From there we walked to the center of the Old Town again. Quebec City has helpfully placed this reminder by the ramparts to let you know where you are, in case you forgot, and we had some fun with it on the way.

Quebec City really is a lovely place.

We ended up at the Ursuline Chapel, and had a lovely time exploring it.

By this point we were getting hungry so we found a place for lunch. It’s one of Geoff and Dave’s favorite places in Quebec City, and it has to be said that the food was tasty though it took a while for it to appear. This was also where I discovered that in Quebec the word “burger” is often used as a synonym for “sandwich,” so what I thought would be a cheeseburger turned out to be a brisket sandwich instead. As noted, it was very good. A bit of a surprise, but very good.

The restaurant was right down the street from Quebec City’s cathedral, and as dedicated church tourists we headed over and were not disappointed. It’s a lovely space, and in the back there is a museum of Quebec’s religious history that was fun to explore as well.

We made it back to the truck with minutes to spare on our parking meter, re-upped, and walked over to the Museum of the Plains of Abraham a few meters away. While the Plains are a geographical feature that has played a role in Quebec City’s history since the place was settled, the Museum focuses on the Seven Years War – the most dramatic period of that history. This is where those English soldiers emerged after climbing up the bluff, and once they’d forced the French defenders to surrender the war pretty much only had one direction left to go. You start with a short film outlining the history and then take the elevator up to the top floor to get to the museum proper. There are a lot of fascinating little displays of artifacts, artwork, and exhibits, and I’m not sure why I didn’t take any photographs but there you go. It was a worthwhile visit, and it was interesting to see it all from the Canadian and British perspective for a change.

Our evening back at the house was spent quietly. I got a lot of reading done, which was very nice since I find that at home I don’t have much focus or energy for it. Kim graded her lab reports. We hit the grocery store for some forgotten items and had a lovely dinner. We went for a walk around the neighborhood. It was a pretty area, with very few houses for sale which is always a good sign. It was a lovely way to draw the day to a close.

Our Trip To Canada: Exploring Montreal, Part 1

Like most cities not located in the US, Montreal is a fairly walkable place and we did a whole lot of walking while we were there. Our hotel was about a ten-minute walk from Geoff and Dave’s apartment, the area we were in was full of things to see and do, and we weren’t that much further away from the old part of the city so we could walk there as well. We didn’t walk everywhere – there were things we wanted to do that were neither nearby nor convenient from public transportation and Geoff was happy to haul us around in his giant American pickup truck – but we did a lot of walking in general.

This had some interesting effects.

For one thing, all of that walking rather handily balanced out most of the meals that we enjoyed and the snacking that we did. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. I do not regard vacations as being the proper province of nutrition – that’s what home is for – so I was happy to partake of pretty much all of the lovely food on offer and then try to walk it off for the rest of the day. I don’t know if I succeeded on a dietary level, but I certainly succeeded in justifying to myself the meals that we ate as well as a mountain of snacks taller than the pile I usually take an entire semester to consume. Three cheers for new flavors of potato chips in foreign lands!

For another thing, we got to Montreal not long before the traditional move-out day for apartment-dwellers in Quebec so there was plenty to see as we strolled by. There used to be a law in Quebec that apartment leases turn over on July 1. It was originally designed to prevent landlords from tossing people out in the middle of a Canadian winter. They repealed the law a while ago but people still observe the tradition, so everyone who is not planning to renew their lease moves out all at once on Canada Day. Not everyone feels it’s worth moving all of their stuff when they go, which means that the sidewalks are just lined with nice stuff, free for the taking. In Madison this is called Hippie Christmas and it happens on August 14, but it’s much the same principle. We were not in a position to take advantage of this, having only brought carry-on luggage, but we did notice a lot of interesting things on the sidewalks that weren’t there the next time we walked by.

For yet another thing, when you’re in Quebec and walking along the streets you notice an awful lot of Quebec license plates. This probably should not have made as much of an impression on me as it did, being in Quebec and all, but I grew up in the Philadelphia area in the 1970s, which meant going down the Jersey shore every August along with everyone else in the Philadelphia metro region and at least a third of the population of Quebec so it was kind of a throwback for me seeing all those license plates with “Je me souviens” at the bottom.

After a brief stop at our hotel to drop our bags and get a bit of rest we walked over to Geoff and Dave’s. They’re in the process of buying a house in Montreal while selling the one they have in San Francisco, and while this works itself out they’re staying in an apartment way up on the 18th floor – it has a lovely view of the city and a balcony where you can hang out if the weather is nice, and so we did that for a while.

The first photo looks over much of McGill University (including the Gothic-inspired compound that Geoff and Dave call Hogwarts because, well, look at it…) and the mountain that gives the city its name. The second one is the building across the street, and I love the fact that someone thought to paint a pool on the roof.

We did a lot of just hanging out at their apartment, which is how vacations should be, I think. You spend time with the people you came to see, not doing much of anything except enjoying the company and the food.

After a bit of that we walked over to the Boulevard St. Laurent, where the fun shops are in that part of town, apparently. We followed the World Cup from bar to bar, since they all had televisions pointed out into the street, and eventually ended up at a dumpling place for dinner before heading across the street for ice cream.

From there we walked over to a public park to burn off some of dinner. There are a lot of nice parks in Montreal, and we had a good time hanging out on a bench and watching people pass by.

Eventually it got dark and Geoff walked us back to our hotel since we hadn’t quite gotten our bearings yet and we spent the rest of the evening resolving all of the various e-sim issues that had plagued us all day. The room came with a balcony and since the night was cool and we were twelve floors up we decided that we could skip the AC and just leave the door open. This turned out not to be true, since a) the next day was a holiday in Quebec and b) we were adjacent to a college campus still full of students in the summer who were happy to celebrate that holiday, and thus we learned to kept the door shut.

The next day we had breakfast at our hotel and then walked over to Geoff and Dave’s, hung out a bit, and then jumped into the pickup to go to Mont Real – the Royal Mountain that looms over the city. It’s a pretty drive – Montreal is very hilly, which makes all the walking just That Much Healthier and provides glorious scenery as you drive – and we found the parking area pretty easily. We discovered later that you have to pay for parking even on Quebec Day, but fortunately most of the parking enforcement people had the day off so no harm done.

It’s a quick walk up from there to the top, where we found a wide observation area overlooking the city. It is remarkably attractive to Instagram influencers and wedding parties but if you are patient you can eventually find a spot by the railing and enjoy the view.

There’s also a big lodge of some kind right there, with restrooms, a gift shop, and large squirrels carved into the rafters and I’m sure that made sense to somebody.

From there we drove over to Westmount to see Geoff and Dave’s prospective house. Westmount was once a suburb and is now a municipal island entirely surrounded by Montreal, and there you will also find Geoff and Dave’s favorite local bagel place.

Apparently Montreal is known for its bagels – they insist, in fact, that their bagels are superior to those found in New York City – so we were looking forward to deciding this for ourselves. Montreal bagels are nicely chewy and completely coated in toppings on both sides – my poppy seed bagel probably disqualified me for the next three Olympics even as a spectator – and you have to love that about them. On the other hand, they are skinny – we were told that they came in Regular and Thin and I was genuinely surprised to find that we’d gotten the Regular – and while they are boiled as a proper bagel must be (which puts them head and shoulders above the steamed toroidal muffins that we have in the midwest) the water has honey it in which gives the bagels a sweet taste. They were, it has to be said, very good bagels and I was quite happy to go back for more, but New York all the way, baybeee.

Westmount is also a nice place to walk around. We found the local library which was closed for Quebec Day but the attached greenhouse was open for those who wanted to explore it. Why a library has an attached greenhouse is an interesting question, but perhaps in the Canadian winters a bit of warmth and greenery is just another thing to borrow for a while. We also found a great little park where people were setting up for a holiday concert and we hung out there for a while, watching in mild confusion as a young girl walked by carrying a resigned looking cat on a leash. You go, kid.

At some point we walked into L’Église Saint-Léon de Westmount, because we enjoy doing that sort of thing.

After a brief siesta back at our hotel which I spent watching Switzerland defeat Canada in the World Cup while Kim graded lab reports for her summer class we walked back over to Geoff and Dave’s to hang out for a bit. We had dinner plans but ended up canceling them because package delivery services are not very good at actually delivering packages when they say they will or, sometimes, at all, and in the end Kim, Dave and I wandered out to a nearby Lebanese restaurant to get takeaway. Not that Lebanese restaurant – that was closed. The other one. There’s a lot of Lebanese food in Quebec when you get right down to it, and in my experience pretty much all of it is good.

Also, there was champagne. Geoff is very much a champagne sort of person and he was happy to share this with us. I did not realize how many different kinds of champagne there are in this world, and it was a lovely thing to discover.

That night we remembered to shut the balcony door of our hotel and we slept much more soundly because of it.

The next day after breakfast we walked over to Geoff and Dave’s and then almost immediately Kim, Geoff and I headed back out to the Boulevard St. Laurent where we raided the European grocery store and the Hungarian deli because interesting food is a startlingly high percentage of why we go anywhere, really. We had a lovely lunch of Hungarian sausages and some kind of tasty chocolate torte and that’s just how we roll, yo.

Somewhere in there Geoff’s package actually arrived, which meant that nobody had to stay at home to wait for it so we all headed out toward downtown Montreal, with a side trip through McGill’s campus. You forget, working on a commuter campus, how big and landscaped an actual four-year residential campus can be.

Our first stop was Simon’s, a giant throwback of a department store where Kim found a couple of hats because, as one of my all-time favorite memes put it, “All better with hat.” My ability to absorb department store shopping is pretty limited, however, so I ended up hanging out by the front door watching people go by and to be honest I think I got the better end of that deal. It was an interesting crowd. I think my favorite was the middle-aged guy who spent an entire red light shouting conspiracy nonsense at the broader public and then when the light turned green he just stopped shouting and ambled on with his day. I’m not sure if anyone else even saw him, which does raise the question of whether he was simply a hallucination. It’s a strange world. You can never tell.

Our next stop was The Ring.

If you’ve never seen The Ring, it’s piece of modern art and it’s pretty much exactly what it says on the tin except bigger than you’d ever think reasonable or even possible. They’ve mounted it between two buildings and you can see it from a long way off. It’s hypnotic that way. To judge from our experience it’s a surprisingly popular attraction – we ended up sitting on a platform almost directly underneath it for a while and the foot traffic never stopped. Plus if you’re looking back toward McGill it frames the mountain pretty well.

Montreal is an enjoyable place to wander around, it turns out, and we spent some happy time doing that until we ended up in the park with the fire fountain and I have tried to find it on the map since then without success so you’re just going to have to take my word for it that it exists. It’s across the street from a couple of places where you can purchase baked goods and drinks on a hot day and there are benches and tables surrounding it where you can sit and discuss whatever’s in front of you, such as the wide array of influencers who find it irresistible. We never did see the flames – they don’t just happen automatically because flames, and there was no staff there at the time – but we did see a video of the fountain in action so we know they actually do that from time to time.

After that we wandered through the city and down to the riverfront.

We eventually found a pier where the Cirque du Soleil is headquartered. It’s right next to the giant Ferris wheel with the Canadian flag in the middle. You can’t miss it.

I have no idea what building this is, but you have to admit it is striking.

[EDIT:  Kim says this is the back end of the Chapelle below.]

 

Eventually we found our way to the Chapelle Notre Dame de Bon Secours Chapel, which was built in the 1770s on the ruins of a previous chapel that had burned down. It’s dedicated to sailors, and you can tell that from the wooden ship models that hang down from the ceiling at intervals.

It sits on a lovely street that parallels the river.

If you take that far enough and then hang a right, you end up on a very nicely kept little boulevard that goes steeply uphill like so much of Montreal, on which you will find the world’s smallest Dairy Queen. As Wisconsin residents we of course had to stop there.

From there we went further up the hill to where Andean Slash and his band were playing and then took the Metro back to Geoff and Dave’s apartment to rest up after our adventures.

Fully rested, we headed back to the Boulevard St. Laurent for a very nice dinner. Geoff and Dave are much more attuned to fine dining than I am so it was an experience. The food was very good, if a bit mystifying to me, and the place was hopping.

Boulevard St. Laurent is also, it turns out, near the Portuguese neighborhood in Montreal which meant that they sell pasteis de nata, referred to simply as “natas” there. This place would sell you a half-dozen in a cardboard tube that kept them hot all the way back, plus they had cans of a Canadian-made chinotto. Two of my favorite delicacies from my various travels, all in one place in a little shop in Canada! Life is good.

Also, the doner guy tried to wave us in, but after dinner and dessert we were able to resist his siren call as we headed back to Geoff and Dave’s to wait out the rain before returning to our hotel.