October 18 – Quebec

Our first order of business (after bundling up a lot…it’s cold outside) was to walk around Old Quebec.  The end of one of the buildings was covered with an awesome, top to bottom, side to side mural of a street scene in old Quebec.

And we had our first view of the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac Hotel at the top of the hill.

Then it was on up the to the top of the hill for a better look at the Fairmont Chateau Frontenac.  This is the iconic hotel that sits atop the cliffs overlooking the St. Lawrence River.  It is the main view one sees on all of the photos of Quebec City.  

There was a wide plaza in front of the hotel...

with beautiful views of the St. Lawrence River below.

and the beautiful Notre Dame Church.

This Notre Dame has the only "Holy Door" in North America and one of only 7 in the world.  It was blessed by Pope John Paul II in 2013 as part of the celebration of the 350th anniversary of the church.  The Holy Door is a symbol of communion with the universal church.

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The bells of Notre Dame Church
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There were certainly a lot of other interesting sights to see as we walked around the top of the hill...

including some Halloween decorations.

We also saw the old city wall and a gate.

We didn’t eat lunch today because we are doing another Food Tour in the afternoon.  For this tour we went to seven places and tasted 12 items.  Unfortunately one item was smoked salmon, which neither of us like, and several others were alcohol…neither of us drink. 

However, most of the other food was very good.  We had crepes, poutine (seems to be Canada’s national food – French fries, gravy and cheese curds, very good if they have good gravy), a chicken pate (from a farm to table, organic kitchen), natural wines (no preservatives or sulfites), maple fudge and local honey, and artisan chocolates at the end.

  
We passed this restaurant on the food tour.  Please note that the name is Tois Garcons (or three boys) and there are three sets of pants and shoes hanging from the balcony.

The walking seemed to be endless as the tour took us well outside of the old city walls into the new city.  We were all getting pretty tired by the end.  Plus, the portions were very small (unlike our pizza tasting tour in Toronto where we all ended up stuffed) so we all decided we would have to go somewhere for dinner.  By the time dinner time rolled around none of us wanted to go out in the cold so we ate at the hotel.  Very good food and no cold walk involved.