johnboystravelblog

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

I had seen small signs for Comedi Ha! earlier in the day and assumed it was promoting a comedy club.  I was wrong.  It was a huge music festival being held at various venues around the city.

Vidéotron, the major sponsor, is a large telecommunications company which offers cable, internet and cell phone service throughout Canada.

 

Vidéotron also holds the naming rights to the indoor Major Junior Ice Hockey League stadium across town:

I’ll talk more about that in a future post.

Here is a large fountain in front of the (Québec province) Parliament Building.

And this is the (Québec province) Parliament Building.

Remember, contrary to what Québec province wants you to believe, the Parliament Building is in OTTAWA, the CAPITAL of CANADA.

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

There was a park with statues or busts of many notable world leaders.  As I took this all I could think about was the movie Fight Club (which for some odd reason is one of my favorite movies).  If you’ve seen the movie you should remember how Gandhi factors in to it.

This is part of the massive stone fortification which surrounds Vieux-Québec (Old City):

And I realize that the photo below is terrible.  I took it while eating lunch after I realized that if I had been there earlier in the day I’d literally have been in the shadow of Château Frontenac hotel, perhaps the most photographed building in the city.

I selected this restaurant for lunch because as I was walking past the entrance I saw that one of their daily specials was French onion soup.  I had certain foods which I wanted to enjoy while I was here and I had somehow left French onion soup off the list.  I ordered escargot as a remembrance of the first time I ever had it while in Québec 30 years ago, and a Grand Marnier sour.  I often enjoy “sours” and I love Grand Marnier but I had never put the two together.  It was yummy, but I think Grand Marnier is best enjoyed straight up.  And I need to learn how to make escargot at home.  The ingredients are pretty basic, though I need to find a source of quality, edible snails, and I can’t think you need to be a rocket scientist to assemble it.  Hell, if you put enough butter and garlic on it I could be eating Silly Putty for all I know (especially after a few Grand Marnier sours)….

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

The first two photos represent a dilemma I sometimes face when trying to photograph a large building in close quarters.  I often can’t get far enough back to get a good “horizontal” shot and the “vertical” shot doesn’t indicate just how big the building is.  These shots were also diminished in quality because I was facing towards the sun (even though I was in the shade).

The photo below is of a piece of art which was a gift to the city.  I took a photo of the plaque explaining the gift but it is blurry and I can’t read it!  One reason I “usually” take duplicate photos…

You’ve already seen the building with the red roof in the photo below.  I took this because it shows the steeples of Notre Dame Basilica in the background.

Still searching for that perfect holiday gift (to give or suggest for yourself)??  How about musical spoons!  Collect all 11!!

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

These photos are all of or near Rue de Petit Champlain, a narrow, pedestrian walkway lined with restaurants and shops located down near the St. Lawrence River below the majestic Château Frontenac hotel.

 

 

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

These cannons were down by the St. Lawrence River.  Québec is ready in case Trump gets the bright idea that he wants to buy Canada…

This is the lower part of a “Funicular,” a little tram-like car which traverses a steep track going either up or down the hill.  Two cars are connected and as one goes up the other one goes down.  The majestic Château Frontenac hotel is located at the top of the hill.  You’ll see the top level of the Funicular in another post in the next day or two.

A clever use of old terra cotta flowerpots:

The sign below is part of the “Comedi Ha!” music festival which was being held at various venues around town.  Too bad there wasn’t a single person around to take a photo of me poking me head out of the cutout  (** rolling eyes **)…

The photo below is of a large picture frame set up around a swinging chair.  I took several pictures of couples or families sitting on the chair (using their cameras, obviously).

August 16, 2019

Here are more things I saw Friday as I walked around “Old City”:

August 16, 2019

Here are some of the things I saw Friday afternoon in “Old City”:

Most cities I have been in have a button pedestrians must push at major intersections to trigger the “Walk” sign to come on so they may safely walk across to the other side.  In Québec they’ve kicked it up a notch and you only need to pass your hand underneath a sensor.  No need to push a nasty button which Lord knows how many people have touched after first licking their fingers…

Hard to tell from the sign below but in Canada they strongly encourage drivers to shut their cars off in many circumstances where they might otherwise let them idle (as JohnBoy does all the time while trying to take “hit and run” photos but often gets sidetracked talking to people as he did in Meat Cove, Nova Scotia).

You can’t really see it in my photo because it is in pale blue but there is a depiction of a cloud of exhaust billowing from the tailpipe – like this:

The majestic building shown below is part of Gare du Palais, the train station!!

 

Parts of the interior were undergoing maintenance but the areas I could get to were gorgeous.  They don’t build many buildings like this any more…

 

I took some other interior photos but because of the sunlight coming in the high windows they didn’t turn out very well.

August 16, 2019

Here are some of the things I saw as I was walking back to my Airbnb after having spent the majority of the day walking around “Old City”.

These guys were enjoying a game of outdoor ping pong on what was a gorgeous afternoon.  The table is made of concrete and the “net” appears to be made of metal.  Lucky for them it wasn’t a very, very windy day.

I don’t really know what the sign below is all about.  Perhaps after everyone in your group splits up to do different things around town you would all plan to meet under the green sign on the parking deck at 5pm.  I would think it would be easier to pick a more substantial landmark like the entrance to Château Frontenac.

Looks like I stumbled on where some of Parks Canada’s elves work their magic:

A sign below a traffic light.  Hmmmm… do I feel like going left or right?

I saw this heron down below while walking over the St. Charles River bridge:

It flew a tad closer to the bridge I was standing on and the sun had come out from behind a cloud:

And this was after he flew under the bridge to the north side:

And this had been bothering me all day.  It was facing the river and bridge at some kind of kid’s recreation facility and kept rotating slowly full circle.  I couldn’t bring myself to get a shot of it looking right at me.  I was afraid I might not sleep as it was…

 

 

September 7, 2019

Real time.   No photos, yet…

I have reviewed the photos from my first full day in Québec City.  It looks like I will be posting over 120 (yikes!).

Rather than trying to split them up into similar things with descriptive titles I think I will post them in groups of around 10-12 pictures each in the order they were taken.  That will give the viewer the best feel for what I saw and in what sequence.  I will post BACKWARDS – with the end of the day posting first and the beginning of the day last.  This will, as the posts are examined in the top to bottom order on the blog, put them in chronological order.  For this reason you will see Québec-Day 1-Post 10/10, then 9/10, etc.  You may look at them in any order you wish but you may want to wait until they are all posted as I may make reference to something I saw earlier in the day in “subsequent” posts.

I hope to have them all done by the end of the day Saturday but I have a pretty busy day planned.  It is a beautiful day in Durham post-Dorian and I do want to spend some time out on my deck until it gets hot after lunch.

 

 

 

 

 

August 15, 2019

When I reached Tadoussac I had a short wait before being able to board the ferry for the short trip back across the Saguenay River.  I was one of the first few cars in line and was delighted that when I was instructed to drive on to the ferry the man who pointed to the lane I was supposed to occupy indicated I was to drive up on to the ramp above all the other vehicles!!

The bad news was that since I was first in that line I had to drive all the way down the ramp at the other end and park sloping downward:

Here was the view looking east towards the St. Lawrence River as we crossed the Saguenay River:

And here is a kid gazing out the window at the “other” ferry as we crossed:

There is something else that happened as I approached the ferry but I’ll save it for another post.  I proceeded south to Québec City and arrived there a little before dark without any further excitement.