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It finished with a bang!

Wednesday, July 31, 2019

For our last day in Quebec, we had decided to explore the old town a bit more. Although we had already been to the citadelle, we hadn't had much time to look around the rest of town so we once we were up and ready we started heading up hill. We went to Tim Horton's first for some breakfast, geting an egg and bacon muffin with a hash brown - nice. We then made our way to St John gate which we climbed up to take in the view. Whilst up there, we saw some people in period costume below saying something was happening in 10 minutes. They turned out to work for the Artilary museum which is just by the gate, and were there to do a black powder demonstration. We stuck around to watch, taking a few photos of the gun shot whilst there, and then afterwards decided to check out the museum.

The museum was quite intersting with lots of information about the original fortifications that made up the city and later the work that was made to make the city more attractive. To improve the local economy the city started celebrating it's history as a fortified city early in the 19th century and it remains the only fortified city in North America, becoming a world heritage site in 1985. Leaving the main museum, we visited the separate site nearby that houses the old barracks. The barracks are currently undergoing restoration work, but there are 3 floors of rooms to explore inside. It was all quite interesting, and we found ourselves back outside just as they were about to perform the black powder demonstration again. After watching for a second time, we headed back up the ramparts and continued walking along eventually ending up back at ther Dufferin Terrace. 

On the terrace, we decided to have a look at the remains of the foundations of the old chatau which are underneath the terrace. Tickets were only $4 each so we headed on down. There is information boards explaining the different areas of the ruins and cases containing some of the archeological finds, again was quite interesting taking about 40 minutes to work our way through. Back up on the terrace we tooks some photos and grabbed a drink in the Starbucks. By coincidence, whilst getting the drink the starbucks, the barista asked if it was my last night and mentioned that there was going to be a fireworks show that you could watch from the terrace! After our drinks we headed back down to the hotel for bit before tea. We had tea at Buffet de L'Antiquaire, the place we had previously visited for breakfast. This time we had club sandwiches each with chips - there was a lot of it, but it was very nice, and good value. 

Later in the evening, we headed back up to the terrace for the fireworks, they were due to start at 10, and when we headed up just after 9 it was already really busy, we'd looked them up online back at the hotel and apparently they are watched by as many as 700,000 people. We had a great view of the fireworks, it was a great way to end our last night here! Got back to the hotel a bit before 11 and packed up our stuff ready for Boston tomorrow!

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profile imagePosted by Ben Taylor
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Montmorency Falls

Tuesday, July 30, 2019

Today we decided to try out a place we'd seen yesterday for breakfast. The place in question is Buffet de L'Antiquaire, we'd seen some people eating there when we were out taking night photos yesterday and noticed they did an all day breakfast. It turned out to be a good choice, I had a full fry up and Dani had a pancake with eggs and bacon. Feeling pretty full, we headed out for the day. Today we had decided to visit the Montmorency falls. It's a bit further out of Quebec city so we needed to find another route there. We had found a review on trip advisor that talked about getting the bus, so we dutifully headed down to the bus station. We bought the bus tickets from a kiosk and then headed out to find the bus stop for bus 800. We didn't have to wait long before the bus arrived and we were on our way. 

The bus took about 25 minutes to reach it's final stop in Monmorency and so everyone got off. The next bit involved following a man that we thought knew where he was going... we think he did but decided on a slightly different route at the very end. It turns out the falls aren't particularly well signed, but we found them in the end anyway. We had arrived at the top of the falls on a bridge that overlooks them, and after looking for a while we wondered if that was it, but then spotted some steps leading down the side. The wooden steps weave down the side of the falls with lookout platforms dotted on the way down, it kind of looks like an Ewok village. Reaching the bottom, we walked to the edge of the platform right in front of the falls. There was a refreshing mist from all the water that was amazing to stand in given it was another really hot day, so we spent a while there enjoying it and taking a few photos.

We then followed the path around the pool at the bottom of the falls and across the bridge to a welcome centre, where we sat and had a drink in the cool. We had also spotted that you could catch a cable car from here back to the top, and not relishing the thought of all the steps we bought tickets. The cable car took us back to the top on the other side of the bridge from where we had first started, just outside Manoir Montmorency, an old building that houses receptions rooms and a restaurant. We didn't go in, but we did have an ice-cream from the stall on the boardwalk terrace just around the corner - it was very nice. Just as we were about to cross back over the bridge to head back out, we realised that the bus stop where we had been dropped off, was just up the pathway (we'd walked a long way round as it turned out when we'd arrived). As we headed up the path, we managed to catch our return bus that was just getting ready to leave. 

Back in Quebec we had a look for a supermarket that was suppposedly near where we'd got the bus, but it was nowhere to be found so we headed back to the hotel empty handed. We went to a local pizza place for tea which turned out to be a more or less private dining experience, arriving quite late, we ended up being the last customers there. It was very tasty, nonetheless! 

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profile imagePosted by Ben Taylor
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