For some unknown reason, this post and the two that follow remained in the electronic void of a hard drive with only the photos gathering virtual dust as the years passed. It is 2023 as I return to this, our first trip to Canada, and while I cannot be sure if there are notes for these days or not, I’m not ready to turn everything over to see if we might still have what could have been jotted down a dozen years ago. The first four days of the trip must have been written during or directly after the visit to our northern neighbor, as there are details in those posts that I’ll never be able to match in whatever I write here in an attempt to bring context to the images. This near-absolute lack of detail is a tragedy but can’t be helped.

Based on the entirety of the photos taken on this day, Caroline and I have pieced together a rough outline of our steps through Quebec City. To begin with, we decided not to have breakfast at the Château Frontenac. No doubt it looked stuffy to us, and we felt like intruders in this posh place anyway and thus decided to explore our surroundings instead. It was still early, and we saw glimpses of the rising sun across the St. Lawrence River. Just around the corner, we came across Notre Dame de Quebec Basilica. While its outside doesn’t look all that impressive, it is Canada’s oldest church, originally built in 1647 and elevated to a basilica in 1874. Since its inauguration, it has burned down and been rebuilt a few times, the last time when the Canadian Ku Klux Klan set fire to it in 1922.

We were not aware of all these details when we toured Notre Dame, although we did admire the shrine of Quebec’s first bishop, Francois de Laval, and enjoyed the atmosphere in the church with all the goings on that a big cathedral can have when no mass is in progress. Once we had left, though, it was time to indulge in breakfast, and Cafe and Boulangerie Paillard fit that bill. Two cafes-au-lait and some pastries later, we were back on the streets of old town Quebec City and, sure enough, ran into another church, Saint Jean-Baptiste or St. John the Baptist.

Mass was just winding down, so we didn’t spend much time here, just enough to appreciate the beauty of its hallowed walls. Sadly, when I checked Wikipedia for more information about the church, I found out that it was closed permanently in 2015. The need for costly renovations and a dwindling flock of faithful souls led to the, no doubt, difficult decision. I was unable to find out what had happened with the building since then.

After leaving the church, we must have decided to head towards the waterfront again. We probably had our eyes set on the citadel, but first, we came across a beautiful park.

…A park which is named Battlefields Park because of a historic encounter between British and French troops here in 1759 in the battle of the Plains of Abraham. Today, it is a peaceful and lovely place, and we soon spotted this sign. The gnomes showed us the way to the Joan of Arc Garden, which is decorated for Halloween.

But first things first.

We enjoyed the various displays of whimsy and gloom, then made our way to La Citadelle de Quebec, an active fort with a museum, which we visited. Since we had to be on a tour and would have had to wait hours for an English-language guide, we decided to join a French group. Unfortunately, that means we missed out on a lot of information, but it was still pretty interesting. The museum was a hodge-podge of insignia, plaques, and dodgy dioramas depicting historic battles and other noteworthy events.

I’m considering this image of Caroline and her identical twin, Batisse the Goat, in full military garb as the basis for claiming we are where I said we are.

Batisse is the regimental mascot of the “Van Doos,” the regiment garrisoned here, the only historical fortress that is still an active military installation in North America. The regimental nickname is a clumsy English attempt to pronounce the regiment number in French. They are the 22nd regiment, which is Vingt-Deux in French. This stuffed Batisse might have been the O.G. goat that was gifted to the regiment in 1955 by Queen Elisabeth from her private stock of Persian goats; in 2011, they were on the 10th “incarnation” of this noble ungulate.

With the help of another blog featuring rooftops seen from The Citadelle, I learned that this is the Chalmers-Wesley United Church.

Ready to leave the Citadelle, we took one last look around. Here, you can see how close we were again to the Chateau.

Just below the Chateau, which sits on top of a cliff terrace, lies the Quartier du Petit Champlain. We found our way down these stays and opted not to use the funicular; maybe it was not running at the time. The first thing we stopped for at the bottom of the stairs was a musician playing and singing local folk tunes while clogging and playing spoons. Not sure if he is still performing, but his name is Jacques Dupuis and you can find him on YouTube here.

I don’t believe Caroline needed to buy Sex-Appeal soap from Lush to have natural sex appeal, but maybe that’s just me. At the time, we had never heard of Lush Cosmetics but ran into one of their stores in Santa Monica years later. At that time, the soap was renamed “Sexy-Peel.” A quick check today (in 2023) reveals that this scent has been discontinued about two years ago.

With all the amazing food in town, we opted for Quebec City’s version of McDonalds. That’s exactly what we did on our quest to try as many variations of poutine as we could; this one is from Chez Ashton, which is credited with popularizing this humble dish in Quebec City in 1969.

We continued to walk the day away, basking in the feeling of being in an old European city.

Wow, nutcrackers in a storefront seal the sense of being back in Germany for the holiday.

Now feeling festive, it was time for a selfie in front of La Boutique de Noël de Québec.

Desiring something different for dinner than more french fries, cheese curds, and gravy, we opted for some Moroccan cuisine at Un thé au Sahara. While I can’t share anything about the meal itself, I do remember that we met a young couple from Saudi Arabia who were in Canada studying for their degrees and that we’d enjoyed a nice conversation with them.