Visit Dates: September 17-18, 2023
Quebec City is the town Carla was most excited to see. Thanks to her and Terri’s planning we had a very nice apartment AirBnB just a few blocks from the bustling Rue Saint-Jean in the old part of the city. On the morning of the 17th we headed over through St John Gate and into the old town.
I was still a bit on the sick side so after a bit of a walk I headed back to the apartment to sleep while Carla, Terri, and Jim did some more touring.
I was most bummed about missing out on the food tour we had booked. From the picture with the tour guide it looks like they managed to soldier on without me.
By all accounts this food tour was much better than the one we had in Montreal in 2022. They sampled quite a few wonderful dishes. The one they liked the best and had me drooling was a maple syrup poured over ice. Oh well, another reason to head back to Canada.
I slept most of the afternoon and was ready to have some fun in the evening. We headed back down Rue Saint-Jean in the twilight hours and had a wonderful meal.
Coming back the St John Gate was backlit by the same dramatic light.
Now, I love the lighting of these two pictures; but they highlight one of my two problems with the iPhone camera. The sky was dramatic, but it didn’t look as dramatic as the picture. (But that didn’t keep me from making this picture the banner photo of the post.) We’ll visit my other problem with the iPhone camera in a picture farther down.
The next morning we headed out again for a walk along the wall that surrounds the old city. Jim got up early and with his boundless energy scouted the way for us. Here is another gate in the wall – St Louis Gate
Unfortunately my COPD flare took my wind away so I wasn’t able to keep up with the hikes up and down the stairs and hillside. So I headed back down to the flatter area toward the St Lawrence River; Carla and Terri took pity on me and took the low road with me. We walked all the way down Rue Saint-Jean toward the river to view the Château Frontenac – a grand railway hotel built in 1893.
This picture highlights my second problem with the iPhone camera: the vertical lines are skewed with a big keystone effect. Notice especially the tower on the right hand side of the building. My vantage point – lower down shooting up at an angle would be challenging for most cameras; but the tiny little sensor in the phone has an especially hard time.
But Adobe Lightroom comes to the rescue. Here is the same picture after a geometry adjustment. That right-hand tower is still skewed but is much better.
There was a bit of a drizzle – as you can tell by the umbrellas – but it wasn’t too bad. The hotel is built on a bluff overlooking the St Lawrence River.
Now to be fair, this image doesn’t have nearly the keystone effect of the previous one because I am shooting more level.
We stopped inside the hotel for cups of coffee and then had lunch nearby.
Quebec City is a port for many cruise ships. Here we can see the top of a cruise ship with the vast river in the background.
It’s interesting what we remember from elementary school. Although I don’t remember which grade I was in, captured pirates on the Bay of Fundy is a sticky memory, as is the St Lawrence River. I imagine for the St Lawrence River we had been studying the Great Lakes because I associate the song about the Erie Canal with this memory. If you check this map you can see how Lake Erie drains into Lake Ontario which in turn feeds the St Lawrence River. Miles northeast of Quebec City the river drains into the Gulf of St Lawrence and the North Atlantic.
Even though I was under the weather, I absolutely loved Quebec City. French is the predominant language in the Quebec province but everyone was so helpful. When I had to go shopping for cough medicine and something for lunch I tried my teeny bit of French and the shop people were more than glad to come to my rescue and speak English. There are a lot of émigrés from France in the city. I would love to go back again. I’m thinking a cruise down the St Lawrence River that includes Prince Edward Island would be a fantastic vacation. It’s on the list.
September 18th was our last night in Canada for this trip. The next day we headed south to Vermont, New Hampshire, and back to Boston to catch our flight home. Don’t fret, we’ll cover that in the next couple of posts.
