Onion River Exploration Project: Quebec City

Day 4 (8/7/24) Quebec City

In contrast to Toronto’s contemporary architecture, Quebec City is steeped in history. Built on a bluff overlooking the St Lawrence River Quebec City was the last bastion for the French troops in Canada. Nearly the entire old city is surrounded by walls. Sailing into Quebec City leaves quite an impression. We once again started the morning with a walk around the city. Since it is built on a bluff we figured the best thing to do was go all the way to the top and work our way down. Fortunately we got an early start because it soon got rather warm and crowded. We slowly worked our way up past the “Chateau Frontenac” to the “Plains Of Abraham”, the site of the final battle between the French and English which saw England the victor. Chateau Frontenac dominates the landscape from the moment you come into the harbor. Although it has always been a hotel it is the embodiment of every fairytale castle imagined. Everywhere you look in the city is a piece of history. After leaving the plains we worked our way past the Citadelle. We thought about watching the changing of the guard but we weren’t sure that we would have made it in time and were on a very tight schedule so we continued working our way around the back of the fort and started down through the city. In the afternoon we had a tour scheduled. It turned out to be a bit of a letdown after our wonderful morning. The tour started with a trip out to see a local waterfall. It was a rather long ride and after seeing the waterfalls of Iceland and Norway I guess we were a bit jaded. When we got back to town we ended up going to much the same area we had seen in the morning so when we finally got off the bus we asked permission to walk back to the ship on our own. Quebec City is beautiful and definitely somewhere that I would love to spend more time at.