No need to rush off this morning, so we opted for a later breakfast and caught up with Kathy and David at 8.30 am, for what turned out to be an excellent breakfast (included in our rate).
Today we have booked a bus tour that takes us to the countryside around Quebec City. There is only 24 people on the tour (it is a small bus), and it didn't take us long to discover that a few of them were stranded in Quebec City, because of the issues with our cruise boat, The Veendam, before they go on to Boston to meet the new itinerary. Anyway, it gave us a chance to meet a few people who will be on our cruise, and also compare notes on compensation being offered.
Our Tour bus
The tour took us out of town, along the banks of the St Lawrence River. Our driver explained that the river is very tidal and a tidal range of up to 23 ft is experienced in this part of the river. Our first stop is the Island of Orleans, where the original settlers had their settlement. It was explained that they were all good Catholics, and bred well, with 15 to 20 children not uncommon. They soon outgrew the Island and extended out elsewhere establishing new settlements . There are many old houses on the island that are still owned by the descendants of original families, or relatives thereof.
We are treated to our wonderful display of Autumn colours.
David tries out a rocking chair , Canadian Style
We can see Quebec City on the other side of the river
Many of the old houses have waterfront views
The colours from the maple trees can be seen pretty much everywhere we are driving today. Our next stop is the Montmorency Falls, on the mainland, not far from the bridge that crosses to the Island of Orleans.
You can see the falls from the island
Looking back at the island from the falls
Montmorency Falls
There is a cable car that takes you to the top of the falls
Once at the top there is a bridge that crosses the river to the other side, and an opportunity to walk around and get a good view.
David, Kathy and Carole at the head of one of the trails off into the forest
The bus is off again, and this time we are in for one of the customary tourist stops, a copper beating factory, that has made many famous pieces, mostly to do with decorating churches. This didn't take too long, and then we drove off through a little village and ended up at a bakery. Here everyone tried the fresh bread with a maple syrup based spread ( for $1.50 per slice), as everyone was starving. I am sure both the business and driver were happy with the result. We had our bread and wandered around outside to take in the scenery.
The Bakery
As this area was still in one of the areas settled very early in the history of Quebec, there were still many ancestral homes and features of that era still there.
We have seen a number of these root cellars, which were (and still are) used for vegetable storage over winter
Across the road we see more Autumn leaves and it is hard to stop taking photos
Our final destination for the day is Sainte Anne - de - Beaupre shrine. It comprises a huge church and accompanying buildings which dominate the landscape in the small town of Beaupre.
We were back at our hotel by around 3.30pm, had a bit of a rest and headed back out to dinner just after 6pm. Some Canadians we had met on the tour bus had told us of a highly recommended Vietnamese / Thai restaurant within walking distance of the hotel. So after a bit of a reconnoitre to find out where we would meet up with our hop on hop off bus tour tomorrow, we found the restaurant and decided to give it a try. It was BYO, but there was a bottle shop about 50 m away.
The meal was very good, and we had much more food than we needed, at about half the price of a tourist area restaurant. We all headed off to bed very contented.
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