Monday Morning in Quebec City

Monday morning in Quebec City meant more snow and the promise of a gloomy day, which was too bad as we had a tour booked for la Côte de Beaupré. It also meant making sure the snow doesn't stay on the roofs to crash down on unwary passers-by - in this photo there is someone on the roof of the Pub St. Patrick shovelling snow off. He's on the far right of the building, holding onto a rope and bracing himself on a roof ladder, just in front of the little raised window. No harness in sight.

Our tour picked us up at the door of the hotel right at 12:45 so it was clever of us to be packed and ready and in the lobby at that time, even if we were actually on our way to the book store since we thought the tour left the hotel at 1:15. First stop, la Chute de Montmorency. It's very beautiful, even on a gloomy day! The falls are higher than Niagara, but not as wide. About 40,000 litres per second go over the falls in winter; it can double with extra runoff in the spring. This was our first view from the beginning of the walkway.

Along the walkway, we were able to see where the water seeps through the layers of rocks, likely even creating the layers to some extant. Then it freezes along the rockface. Morgan is looking up....

at the weird way these trees curve their trunks out into the open air before growing straight up. Any ideas?

I wish I could get video to post here! The falls were fantastic. They spray freezes into what is called a Sugar Loaf - and the colder and mistier it gets here, the larger the Sugar Loaf, which many people use for ice climbing. Pretty cool! Here are photos looking at the top of the falls, and then at the bottom of the falls, and then one of Morgan and I on the suspension bridge over the top of them:

We then went farther along Chemin du Roy and heard about the area's settlement history, which predates Quebec, and saw tons of neat little homes. We drove along the St. Lawrence almost the entire way. The whole area is full of old homes, stone root cellars from the 17th and 18th centuries, and sugar maples. We stopped Chez Marie; her home/business was built in 1652, the walls are original stonework and are really thick:

She makes fresh breads, maple products, etc, with the maple sugar/butter/syrop etc made from the sap collected from stands of sugar maples, which we could see across the road.

Then we stopped at a lovely little museum owned by a local family who creates art out of copper. The business was started by the patriarch of the family, who spent fifteen years (fifteen YEARS) depicting the life of Jesus in copper. He died in 1979 and his family, including his wife, have all become part of the business of making copper art. Their art is far more secular than his, but the skill is there. It was pretty amazing. The granddaughter gave us a demonstration of how it worked, and it seemed easy enough, until you realized you had to some some artistic talent ha ha:

Morgan and I both picked up souvenirs here (he's showing off his "bracer" in his blog post). I asked who in the family had made the pieces we purchased and the matriarch laughed and said she couldn't say, as they all work on various stages on all the items. Very talented family! You can see some examples of their work in the background.

After this we went on to the Basilica of Ste. Anne. It's very hard to convey the amazing work that has gone into this structure, which was paid for by donations from the people who attended the church. We went into a lovely large church area and I was pretty impressed....they even used beautiful plaster snowflakes to decorate the ceiling. Then, we went up some stairs through a non-descript side door, and found the Basilica and it quite literally took our breath away. You have to really admire the craftsmanship and grandeur of this building, and the photos can't do justice. To give your an idea of its scale, it seats about 2700 people:

It's so tall you can barely see the crosses on top of the spires in this photo. The window in the front is this one:

Every inch of the Basilica is covered in artwork depicting the life of saints; there is even a little area where people who feel they have been cured by Ste. Anne leave their crutches, walkers, etc. These two photos show only about forty percent of the inside of the building, looking to the front and to the back.

After the Basilica we went on a tour to l'Ile d'Orleans which was very beautiful, I'd love to spend time there as it seems a little slice a heaven. My understanding is that it has been given some sort of protected status so there will never be additional construction that takes place there, only what currently exists. I took this photo of the snow falling; the flakes are that big.

Finally we got to see close up the ice of the St. Lawrence. This is what people used to walk across to access the island of Orleans before there was a bridge. The guide told us that the reason the houses in the older areas are white with red roofs (traditionally) is because they would dye the roofs red, using a mix of beef or pork blood and vegetable resins if they didn't have dye, so they would be able to see their homes in the white landscape. Crazy!

This morning we will swim one last time at the hotel here before we move to the Chateau Frontenac for our last three nights in Quebec City. We've really enjoyed out stay at the Hotel Manoir Victoria and recommend it, but we know we wouldn't be able to afford the regular rates here :) thanks expedia for finding us a deal! Same goes for the Chateau - gotta love the sales - we don't even care if our room faces a wall :) It'll give us a different perspective on the city once again.

Carol-Lynne

P.S. Here is what I am torturing Morgan with in the evenings when I am not struggling with internet crashes while posting photos. I let up last night when he told me, in a fit of frustration about having to do book learning, that Quebec was settled in the 1600s but that Jacques Cartier first came here in the 1500s, just to prove he knew something. Then we watched Auction House on Discovery and he saw a trade knife made with a bear jaw handle; he explained that he thought it might have been something traded between the local Indian population and the settlers and explorers. He thought it would get more money than expected at the auction because of its age - and it did. Learning happens everywhere you look; I'm glad he's been paying attention.