Quebec Vacation - Part 2

On Monday morning, we left parc National de Frontenac and headed north to Quebec City.  Our plans for the day were to spend some time in the Plains of Abraham, and the Citadel.

 

Some farmland along the way.

 

Once we arrived at the St. Lawrence, we went down to the water to get some pictures of the skyline of Quebec City from south of the St. Lawrence.

The bridge we travelled across, to get to Quebec City itself.

 

Once in Quebec City, we found a place to park, and then went to find some lunch.  We had ended up parking in the upper portion, right at the Plains of Abraham.  We wandered around and decided to try going down to the river level to find some lunch.  There were a set of stairs we could use.  We couldn't get them all on one picture - just let it be known it was a lot of stairs.  And we went DOWN them first.  We just went down at a leisurely pace, while several crazy exercise people ran up and down 4 times in the time it took us to get down once.  Not quite, but still, it was crazy.

Isn't this a pretty building?

Here's a little cafe we found, where we had our lunch.  Just a chicken sandwich but it was very yummy!

 

Then we had to climb all the way back UP those stairs!  From there we went to the Citadel, an old fort from the early 1800s.  This fort is still an active military base, so we couldn't wander around inside, except on a guided tour.  We did go on the tour.

 

This building - the magazine - was where they would store all the gun powder.  The walls stick out all the way around the building were put there, so that if the building was attacked, and exploded, it would explode UP instead of OUT, lessening damage and injury to buildings and people nearby.

This building, which we had seen from across the river already, while quite a fancy building, was not that old.  It was built in the 1920s (I think!) and designed to look older than it was.  We had a closer view of it from the Citadel.

A view of the St. Lawrence from the Citadel.  It was a lovely sunny day when we were there.

Some "squished-together" buildings. :)

After we left the Citadel, we decided to go across to the big island, Ile d'Orleans.  This was the bridge we took across, and once on the island, we drove pretty much all the way around its perimeter.

About three-quarters of the way around, we found a rest area with a lookout tower - more stairs!  We summoned the energy (we had also done a lot of walking that afternoon) and climbed up.  Well worth it, for the view.  The island is mostly farm land I think, and some small villages.

 

 

On a smaller island close to this one, there is a farm way in the distance on this peninsula below! At first glance it was hard to figure out. We only figured out what it was by looking through binoculars. The camera zoom did a good job of picking it out.

 

After we left the island, we left Quebec City, heading north, to our next campsite, at parc National de Jacques-Cartier.  That will be the next blog post.