On the way from Montreal to Boston, we stopped by at the Gorgeous Quebec City, Canadian where has French as its sole provincial official language. Some of our tour friends went to Citadel, while the bus dropped us in the historic core of the city to walk around by ourselves before lunch time. The city was very beautiful during fall, the trees' leaves were colorful from green, yellow, orange and red. Unfortunately it's raining, so we had to wear a hat or an umbrella.
We didn't know the city map, so we've just walked around following our heart. Tourism is the 5th largest industry in Quebec, its European feel and its history, culture and warmth have made Quebec a favourite tourist destination. The beautiful Montmorency Park National Historic Site was our first destination. The public park which opened in 1898, changed name to Montmorency in memory of the viceroy of New France, Henri II, Duke of Montmorency, and the first bishop of Québec, Monseigneur François de Montmorency-Laval. The park at Port-Dauphin and Côte de la Montagne Streets was rather tarnish because of the rain, anyway we still could enjoy the beauty of the park. Located at the top of Côte de la Montagne, it is an urban park that forms part of the Fortifications of Québec National Historic Site of Canada. Some canons facing to the river and the defensive wall was the only remaining military infrastructure could illustrate its associations with military history.
From the wall we could view downhill towards the St. Lawrence river while at the opposite was the view towards the urban center. Montmorency Park also had several commemorative monuments, and several mature trees. One of the monument was the Cartier Monument, in memory of the politician George-Étienne Cartier, in Montmorency Park, 1984.
The Château Frontenac, a national historic site, was prominently located on a cliff overlooking the St. Lawrence River, within the Québec historic district, could be seen from the park. It's an imposing hotel with five brick and stone wings and a central tower erected in seven stages between 1892 and 1993 with its massive scale and fortress-like appearance. The hotel's picturesque eclecticism and rich polychromatic surfaces reflected popular taste in Victorian architecture.
As we didn't know the way, we followed the crowd to leave the park, went down to the corner of rue Notre-Dame, we saw beautiful mural painted (around 100 meters square)on the whole side wall of house located at 102 rue du Petit-Champlain using an art technique that uses realistic imagery to create the optical illusion that depicted objects exist in three dimensions. It showed the history of the district during 16th-18th century.
Following the street down to ancient Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a small Roman Catholic stone church at the Lower Town of Quebec City. Construction was started in 1687 on site of Champlain's habitation and was completed in 1723. The church is a popular tourist attraction within the city, as well as a place of worship. In front of the church was quite large square with a small garden & statue in the middle including benches to rest, surrounding by beautiful houses/shops.
Reaching the historic Petit Champlain district, we saw the Old Quebec Funicular which links the Haute-Ville (Upper Town) to the Basse-Ville (Lower Town). It is located in the district of Vieux-Québec–Cap-Blanc–colline Parlementaire in the borough of La Cité-Limoilou, near Place Royale. It is the oldest commercial district in North America. The streets was narrow, with beautiful neat shops at each side, it's very clean and nice. As the time was ticking we decided to go up through the steep Breakneck Stairs or Breakneck Steps, Quebec City's oldest stairway, were built in 1635. Because of wind and rain, my recurrent knee pain occurred, I had difficulty to climb the steps, so I had to hold the wet railing steps strongly to lift my body. It made my long sleeve shirt getting wet.
As we had a few minutes before lunch, we ran to the cathedral and city hall. The weather was not good, it's still raining and cloudy. We could manage to take the picture in front of the cathedral. Unfortunately the city hall was under renovation, we took some pictures on the yard which was decorated for Halloween.
Then we rushed to the 1640 restaurants, the oldest restaurant in the city. The environment and decoration were nice, also the foods were delicious. We had a complete set, my mom and I selected pork for our main course while my younger sister selected salmon, and my other sister preferred beef. The yummy strawberry mouse was closing our lunch also ended our visit to Quebec. Someday I would like to return to Quebec as we hadn't got any chance to explore other part of the city.
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