Two Views of Vieuex Quebec

The Kind of Tour We DidNOT Take
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Today we decided on a walking tour followed by a tour on a river boat.  We set off from the Information Touriste on, if you'll pardon the unpardonable pop cultural reference, a three-hour tour.  It would eventually take us nearly five, though to be fair, that did include a 45-minute stop for lunch.  We walked about three miles in all, a good bit more than yesterday, but a good deal slower, too.  Easier on the feet.

The walking tour form the Quebec City guide book took us all through the old city, aka Vieuex Quebec, looking at a wide variety of buildings from the 17th, 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, including a large number of churches.  The one church we went into was Notre Dame de Quebec, seat of the oldest parish in North America (one map shows the boundaries of the parish as being all of North America as it was then known).  We also saw Artillary Park, a variety of memorials to religious orders that founded schools (for both boys and girls), a variety of fortifications, the old city wall (Quebec is the only city north of Mexico that still exists as a walled city), a couple of parks, a bunch of statues, a view of the old harbor, the Chien D'Or (a mysterious golden dog in the wall of a building), and an open air artists' market.  The only other site we actually took time to go into is the Chocolate Museum, where I imbibed a spectacular concoction of hot chocolate (Chocolat Chaud) containing creme glacee (ice cream) and creme fouette (whipped cream).  When I got to the bottom of the cup (this did not take long!), I discovered a little treat:  a spoonful of hot fudge.  Yum-my!  Had to walk an extra mile or two to pay that one back, though!

A Restaurant for Old Canadians?
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Goofiness du jour:  bus driver on the way in regaled us with jokes.  Someone or another dies and goes to heaven, and sees a bunch of clocks.  He asks what those are for, and St. Peter tells him that these are symbols of famous people.  He points to one that is stopped, and says that this is the clock of Mother Theresa, because Mother Theresa never lied.  He points to another one and says that clock only ran twice; it's Abraham Lincoln's clock; he only ever told two lies.  The visitor asks, "Where is the clock for Brian Mulroony?"  St. Peter says:  "Jesus has it in his office; he's using it for a ceiling fan."  Probably funnier if you're Canadian, but still...  The other joke involved dental extractions and Viagra and was probably mostly amusing because it was off-color and I found it pretty funny that the driver would risk such a thing in a bus full of strangers.  But then again, perhaps he figured he'd never see us again, so who cared if we were offended?  The shuttle was free, after all; what could we expect from the entertainment?

Rooftops
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Fiasco du Jour (we're finding out that you can count on at least one!):  we bought tickets for the river cruise at the tourist information center in the morning.  When we reported to the dock half an hour before cruise time, as ordered, we were told that there WAS no 3:30 cruise today, and that the woman who sold us the ticket should have telephoned first to see.  (Apparently it's the second cruise and only runs on busy days.)  As it happened, she had phoned...at any rate, they said it would be no problem; they called another cruise line that had a tour at 4:00 and then gave us a voucher to cover the tickets.  They even drove us down to the other quay, as it was about a mile.  On arrival there, however, that ticket clerk tried to extract the fee for the tickets.  Since we had surrendered our tickets for the voucher, this did not sit well.  So more phone calls ensued, but they did give us the tickets without further payment.  This cruise, however, turned out to be half-an-hour shorter than the one we had paid for, and would have been a few dollars cheaper had we bought it in the first place.  Oh well!

Chateau Frontenac from a park just below the Citadelle
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Turned out there were only about 25 people on the boat--which seats 600--and the cruise was very nice.  It was a very good way to end a visit to the city, because once you are familiar with the layout of the land, the whole thing makes more sense from the river.  We enjoyed it very much.

After the cruise, we ended the day with a beer and a soda at a cafe, during which interlude we chatted agreeably with a native of Montreal who has been living in Australia for 20 years, and who is back on vacation with his Australian girlfriend.  They were fonts of information, and we had quite an enjoyable half-hour.

A Nice Little Break on the Walking Tour
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Today, we managed to get the free shuttle back--though possibly we were insane to even try it.  The trick, it turns out, on the advice of this morning's driver, is simply to approach every driver that comes along and ask:  "Are you my bus?"  This worked a charm, and we got back to the hotel without incident.

Tomorrow we are going to drive up the river (or possibly down the river; I haven't got my geography quite right) to Montmorency Falls (there's that name!) and then over to the Ile D'Orleans.  There's a minor league ballgame in the evening, and that will top off our trip to Canada.  I probably won't blog tomorrow, as we'll be in quite late.  Thursday, we're off to Maine, and I'll catch up again as soon as there is more Internet access.