It’s a beautiful day here in Quebec – cold, but sunny – and much better than was forecasted. We arrived on time, but disappointingly we are not at the down town dock, but the ancillary dock a few blocks away. This actually is better for us, because it is closer to our rental car location, but not better for the crew who were all looking forward to going outside today. Plus we’ve told Sergey – and others – that they’ll be right outside of the old town. Oh well – they’ll figure it out!
Azamara Quest gets the water hose treatment from the tugs – since this is her inaugural visit…
…then we have a little bit of an Adelaide moment with the gangway. The crew started to put it on Deck 5 – so we went to sit by the door and wait – only to watch them move to Deck 4. Ah, shades of Adelaide when the Captain had to move the ship 5 meters to get in the right position – and we were so late we had to ditch our rental car plans. Not so today – fortunately. They rearrange the gangway in mere minutes (herculean task – very well done!) and we end up disembarking only about a half an hour late.
We hike around the perimeter of the old walled city, to the new marina, then up to the ramparts to into to town. This route has the least uphill walking, which suits us fine! There is lots of construction, rebuilding walls (yikes!) but we make our way around it and manage to find the car without any issues. The girl at Hertz is a doll, so very helpful, giving us tons of info and suggesting we visit the Canyons on our way to Baie Saint Paul. We grab the car from the parking deck, with the even more helpful valet attendant and head off for Saint Paul. Since we’ve been to Quebec City, we of course, have decided to explore further a field today.
Our first destination – Baie Saint Paul – is described as a quaint artist community situated on the St. Lawrence. It is a little over an hour away and we’ve got all the time in the world – we don’t sail until 9pm. The drive is beautiful. Straight out the highway which turns into a 4 lane road running through all sorts of little towns and villages – and right past the Montmorency waterfalls which we hope to visit this afternoon – making a pit stop at an information center high up on a hillside looking over the river and the valley.
Back in the car, we make it to Saint Paul pretty quickly – it was all downhill! The place is adorable! The main road with all the galleries is quite picturesque – and after circling around for a bit, we finally find one of the parking lots on the map. Now it’s time to wander! And wander we do…up and down the cute little street lined with art galleries and craft houses – none of which we dare enter because we can’t haul this stuff back with us. Although I do try to convince Ed to buy this awesome ceramic pig painted with wonderful river and sailing scenes. Didn’t work – but no one is surprised about that are they?
The town is so quaint and sweet – like a page out of the early 1900’s with the wooden houses and brick buildings. Plus they are decked out for the Fall – everywhere you turn, pumpkins and scarecrows and hay bales. A lovely community feel. There is also a huge cathedral where an art festival is going to begin the next day – good thing we are missing that – it would be a complete zoo here once it starts.
And this great fountain out front of a charming little inn on the main street.
We’ve covered the entire gallery row, up and down, and alas, it is still too early for lunch. So we head back to the car for our return trip toward Quebec. Our next destinations – Saint Anne de Beaupre with it’s monstrous basilica there and then onto Ile d’Orleans, the “farm” island right outside of Quebec City.
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