Monday 7th October

Today we explored Old Quebec City, a full day that started with light rain, but fortunately cleared as the day progressed. We started in Upper Town area, which is the only fully-walled city in existence in North America and ranked (by someone unknown) among the top 20 most romantic destinations in the world. We walked atop the wall surrounding this UNESCO World Heritage Site, taking in the views, Place Royale, Hotel de Ville, cobblestoned streets, fountains, museums, parks, citadels, Parliament House and Chateau Frontenac, the most photographed hotel in the world.

The photos can talk for themselves !

After Upper Town, it was time for Lower Town, which had more quaint streets and cobblestones. This city is really the closest thing to a European city you can get without being in Europe !

We even found some murals !

To finish off the day, we did the Governor's Walk with 310 steps. Was a good day .. 20,600 steps and 16 kilometres.

Tuesday 8th October

This morning we went to Parc De La Chute-Montmorency - or Montmorency Falls Park. By good fortune when choosing our motel, it just happened to be very close to both Orleans Island and the falls ! So 5 minutes up the road and we were at the entrance to the park. It took about 15 mins to actually get in to the park, basically because the person in the booth was not very competent. We made our way to the terminal building from where a cable car makes its way up to the top of the 83m high falls. Here we were told an alternative to taking the cable car up, was to drive around and park in the top carpark. We did the walk to the base of the falls first.

Hopped back in the car and headed to the top of the falls ... a five minute drive, but 15 mins waiting in line to simply show our park pass to get back in !!! Manoir Montmorency is up here, not far from the suspension bridge and viewing platforms offering great advantage points to enjoy the falls. The surrounding trees were turning beautiful Fall colours which added another dimension to the vista. In addition to enjoying the scenic walks around the top of the falls, we headed down the steep 487 step cliff side staircase to the bottom. The cement platform was wet from the spray of the crashing falls, but because we were wearing our Niagra Falls blue ponchos we could enjoy the experience without getting wet.

From here we headed back into Quebec City to check out the "new downtown" area, but this proved to be very nondiescript and uninspiring.

We did find some murals !!!

We still hadn't bought our fridge magnet for Quebec, and with today being our last day in town, we went back into Vieux-Quebec to where there are more souvenir shops and after some hunting we finally secured our magnet.

In retrospect we should have spent more time in the old town today, but alternative decisions were made which is all part of the holiday experience !