Friday was a glorious day. Quebec is so beautiful when it's not raining. I really like it here. We took the mountain bikes out, drove across the bridge and parked along the St. Lawrence. We rode into Quebec on the bike trail. This is the Maasdam cruise ship.
The Chateau Frontenac.
A mega-yacht on the river.
A family oriented fair on one of the points of land on the river. I like the giant octopus attacking the pirate ship.
Lunch! It was good - club sandwiches, grilled cheese and french fries that were worth the calories. Several people were there enjoying a Quebec delicacy, poutine. Poutine is served in a bowl, and is french fries and cheese curds smothered in gravy. I keep threatening to order some so I can get a picture. More on that later.
This is the Domaine Maizerets. It's been here since the early 1600s. It's been a farm, a military garrison (remember those pesky invading Americans?), and a Jesuit seminary. The city of Quebec purchased it and preserved it as open space. It's on one of the bike trails we rode.
Awwwwwwwwww - isn't he cute?
The bike trail system in around Quebec city is massive. We've been really impressed with the fact that people actually get out and use it. People in spandex are in the minority. People use bikes as transportation, for going to work or the store. I'd like to see more helmets, but it's really neat to see couples hauling a backpack out to the park for a picnic (and often a bottle of wine) on their bikes.
Today the weather was just terrible. It rained all night and was still raining and cold at noon so we decided to go find an Anglophone bookstore just on the other side of the river. HA! Double HAH HAH HAH! What do the Quebecois do when it's raining? Why, they go to the malls, en masse. The mall where the bookstore is located was just jammed. Think of Bellevue Square the week before Christmas, multiply by a factor of 10. That's how bad the parking lot was. We were doomed from the git-go because all of the underground parking had a max height of 6'2, and the truck won't fit. After driving in circles for a half an hour we gave up and headed out for the mall with the roller coaster.
The other mall was equally packed, but the parking was outside and were able to find somewhere to leave the truck. It's amazing. Here we are inside watching the open skate on the hockey rink.
Here is the Ferris Wheel.
Another ride.
See the red thing looping across the top of the picture? That's the roller coaster track. Look at all the people. It was wall to wall people.
I took this in the food court. Poutine in all its glory.
The noise level in the food court which overlooked the ice skating rink was just ferocious, so we went back to the restaurant at Hudson's Bay for lunch. I ordered in French - I can pronounce poulet. We were chatting with a guy in line next to us, he said that summer seems to have slid two months to the right. June and July used to be the good months, now it's August and September. So, check the weather before venturing up here.
We left about 4:00 and so did everybody else.
Despite the weather it was a fun trip.
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