Day 6 – Attack on Quebec City

I love the province of Quebec. I find it so picturesque. The rolling hills, the sea, it has everything.

We headed out from the KOA Campground at a fairly decent hour and made our trek to Quebec City. This was the first time I had ever taken the 401 between the 416 turnoff to Montreal so I was interested to see how it looked. I suppose it doesn’t look any different from any other highway but it was an adventure!

I ended up in Montreal while Vero was sleeping around noon and was stuck in some nasty traffic. I’ll know for next time that I can take some alternate ways through Montreal to make it to Quebec City.

Tip Trip #2: Never wake a sleeping girlfriend for directions.

On our way into the area of Quebec City it started raining on us and we had to make the decision of staying at a motel or camp. We stopped into the information booth and they showed us the weather forecast predicated a cloudy evening.

Considering it was raining pretty hard on us we made the decision to take a motel for the night in case the weatherman was wrong (gasp!). I don’t think either of us care for this decision as I am cheap so I preferred the $20 campground for the night. But I also didn’t want to set up a tent in the rain or sleep in the rain either.

We ended up driving to Levis, Quebec on my father’s suggestion as it’s cheaper to stay across the river and just get a ferry into the city of Quebec. We found this amazing motel for only $80 a night! At the time, neither of us knew if that was a good deal or not, but Dad informed us that it was a steal of a deal. In fact, we may have stayed at the same place they did the last time around.

It was funny when we went into the motel lobby…

(in French)
Vero: How much is it for a room for the night?
Guy: (looking at the two of us…points to a flyer showing the honeymoon suite with a jacuzzi tub for only $160 a night!): I have the room for you here.
Vero: No, no! We just want a regular room. The cheapest you can get.

So we had a good laugh at him trying to pawn off his uber-deluxe suite on us. He ended up upgrading us to a king-size bed for free which was awesome.

After hauling our stuff in during the pouring rain, and discovering they had free wireless Internet (bonus!), we packed a bag and headed for Quebec City. The weather was starting to clear up so we were hopeful for good weather for the rest of the day.

We parked down in Levis and caught the ferry. What a great system they have. The ferry doesn’t take long at all and it wasn’t overly expensive either. This was Vero’s first time in Quebec City so I looked to her for guidance on what she would like to do. We hiked up the hill and headed for the Citadel where we got lost for some time but managed to make our way to the entrance inside the fort where they were offering guided tours. Because it is an active military base, this is the only way one can actually visit the site, so we decided to spend the $10 and go for a tour.

It was a great tour although it was pouring on us again and we were so high up that we thought the lightning clouds may have rolled right over us and zapped us! There was a woman from New Jersey who seemed VERY scared of the clouds so she hung out near the walls of the fort. The Citadel has a pretty fascinating history and it just renewed Vero and my ambition to learn more about our great country. After a couple of hours of touring around with our excellent tour guide (who had graduated from the same program as Vero), we headed back into town. Let us not forget how the tour guide was blatantly picking up Vero as he said she looked like Ann-Margaret from Viva Las Vegas! We had never seen the movie so he described her a sex symbol of the time. When we got back to the motel we checked out imdb.com and couldn’t really find the resemblance but I assured Vero that she is pretty well a modern sex symbol of our time. 😉

We checked out the Quebec City Parliament buildings and toured around the city. I LOVE Quebec City and the reminder of the European architecture. We were starving by the time the tour of the Citadel was over so we headed to a restaurant and ordered some good pizza. We loved our waiter, he was so sarcastically funny…I ended up bumping up the standard tip I usually give out due to his amazing demeanor.

We then toured around some shops that were still open (it was after 9PM at this point) and Vero found this amazing medieval type store and she found a ring that her friend had lost awhile back so it was nice to find a shop that carried it. We picked up a few things, headed for the ferry and drove back to the motel.

All in all, we both enjoyed Quebec City although it was pouring on us and we got there too late to do much. I think the next trip will be planned to spend an entire day there at least.

iplaying: Forever Yellow Skies – The Cranberries (To The Faithful Departed)