Real Life Update - A Babymoon in Quebec City
March 2012
For Christmas my mom gave both my brother and I a one night package for 2 in Quebec City. We couldn't use it during the busy spring-summer months, and winter can be quite cold and snowy in Quebec City, so we waited until the weather got warmer. My brother used his the weekend before us, while we went March 24-25. He got much warmer temperature than we did, but it was also uber crowded because of the Red Bull Crashed Ice event.
Ron and I got up early (for a weekend) on Saturday morning and were on the road by 9am. It was pretty cloudy when we left, but luckily the sun was out by the time we reached Quebec City. It takes just a little under 3 hours to get there and I usually do it in one shot (I've been quite often, but it was Ron's first time). However, with the pregnancy we had to make not one, but two stops.
Quebec City was built over 400 years ago. At that time, the city was surrounded by tall stone walls and protected by a fort called "La Citadelle". Most of the walls, as well as the fort, remain and are now called "Le Vieux Québec" (the old Quebec). This old part, as well as a newer part, are situated on very high cliffs and are known as "La Haute Ville" (the high city). This is the main touristic part of the city. "La Basse Ville" (the low city) is where most people live. To get from one to the other you either have to drive up very steep hills, or if you are walking you can take stairs or even elevators!
Our hotel, which was called Chateau Bellevue, was situated within the walls in the Vieux-Quebec. We didn't have too much trouble finding it.
We checked in, but our room was not ready as it was only noon. The guy at the reception desk told us it would be ready by 2pm. Ron was surprised by how many guests/people he saw speaking English at and around the hotel (Quebec City is almost all francophone), but I guess it's to be expected in the touristic area.
Since our room was not ready we went out to explore the area. Pretty much everything is accessible by foot from there (we had an excellent location!), so we left the car with the valet parking. We were hungry so we left the walled city and went to Grande-Allée, which is a street full of restaurants and bars. We ended up stopping at this place called Cosmos for brunch. It looked very nice in there, but I forgot to take any photos. In fact, we did not take lots of pictures the whole time we were there. Sorry. Ron was just not in a picture mood, and it wasn't so "new" to me since I had been several times, and even lived there for a year.
After brunch I lead Ron towards "Les Plaines D'Abraham", which is a huge park where a big battle took place some 400 years ago between the British and the French colony. We could have walked there for hours, however a lot of the snow had not melted yet, plus my legs were already hurting from the walking!, so we just walked back in the general direction of our hotel. This park is all alongside the St-Lawrence River, and at some point we took a long wooded path/stairs with a view of the river. Here is the first picture we took, of the view from there:
Eventually we reached the Vieux-Quebec and had in our sight "Le Chateau Frontenac", one of Quebec City's most well-known landmark.
Just to the left of the Chateau in this picture is actually where our hotel was, so you can see we had a prime location!
That little green building in the bottom right corner of the photo is a great place for snack, but I'll come back to it later.
By then it was late enough that we could go check our room. I did not forget to take photos!
The hotel had a nice direct view of the river. However, when we opened the curtains to our room we saw this :
Oh well! It's not like we were going to spend the whole weekend looking out our window anyway. My brother payed extra for the water view, but I decided to pay extra for a king sized bed instead. We definitely got used of that! As we were resting in the comfy bed, I realized that I had not felt Peanut move once that day and I started to worry! They say when that happens to drink ice cold orange juice and to lie down. I hate orange juice, but I drank some anyway. Luckily, she started moving shortly after. Phew! What a scare! We rested some more, and watched Curling! of all things on tv. We also got to try the super cool multi-jets shower. (oops, no pictures of the washroom area). While it was a nice shower, it took us 5 minutes to figure out how it worked! Hahaha
After a nice rest we were ready to head out again. I liked how the hallway looked, for some reason.
We walked back towards the river and I made a stop at the green building (from earlier) to get some "tire sur la neige". They pour maple syrup on fresh show, then give you a small wooden stick (kinda like a thick popsicle stick) for you to wrap the now harder syrup around. Then you jsut lick it like a lollipop. Sweet and tasty!
We stopped by a nice lookout to check out the scenery. Down below we could see the ferry that links both sides of the river.
In this picture you can see the other side, as well as another little touristic area just below the cliff called "Petit Champlain".
Besides the very steep streets, another way to get down there is to use the "funiculaire":
We continued our walk through the Vieux-Quebec. I took a picture of the front of Chateau Frontenac.
We stopped in a little tourist trap, err I mean shop, to buy Ron's DD a little souvenir. We bought a pen that light up and said "J'aime Québec". Unfortunately, it stopped working after she wrote one sentence with it. Oh well.
For some reason Quebec City was having it's St-Patrick's Day parade a week left, but we missed it by a few hours. We were also now passed closing time for most stores, so we just walked around and took pictures.
Here is one of the "doors" that link the Vieux-Quebec to the newer part.
And here is a view of the newer skyline.
I thought these flowers looked nice. Plus, my mom loves tulips.
We continued our long walk towards our destination : Cafe Sirroco. With our package came a gastronomic dinner at a choice of four restaurants, and this was the one we chose. I was not a fan of any of the appetizers, so Ron took mine. He had scallops, as well as a plate of seafood tartar, which he both LOVED. For our entree we both had Filet Mignon. It was very good, but not the best we've had. For dessert Ron had a strawberry-mango sorbet while I had a chocolate lava cake. His sorbet was very yummy. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about my lava cake. The chocolate in the middle was not hot and melted enough and the whole thing kinda tasted like it was store bought. Overall though we really appreciated our meal. I'm sorry for no picture, but for some reason I feel much more self-conscious of taking food-picture in a restaurant here than at Disney.
Ron wanted to take a cab back, but I was too full and wanted to walk it off. We went back towards Grande-Allée to see it lit up at night. Eventually we made it to our hotel, and I took this one (blurry) picture of the view at night.
We watched a bit more tv, then went to bed. We tried to sleep in the next day, but were up before 9am. We headed to the free-complimentary breakfast, but for some reason Ron did not feel like eating. He should have though! You'll soon see (read) why.
We checked out, pout our luggage in the car, then drove off. I wanted to head to the biggest local mall, "Les Galeries de la Capitale". We walked around a bit, but Ron was very grumpy. He really should have eaten breakfast! So we stopped for some fast food from "Ashton", where I had some good poutine.
With his belly full and his mood improved, we continued our visit. I was in search of a dress for the two upcoming weddings we have to attend. I found one, but it's black and I really wanted color. I bought it anyway, just in case. I also wanted to visit the Toys R Us because I knew their Babies R us section was the biggest of the province. That's where we bought two things for Peanut : a game for when she will be 3+ (I know, it's a while away, but it's to build forts and houses inside and I was worried it wouldn't be sold anymore in 3 years), and her coming home outfit. We did not take any pictures of those, so I'll have to do that and post it in the next baby update. While in the store Ron took the only picture of me from the entire trip :
I'm as tall as 15 hands! And Ron is taller than 8 stars. LOL
The other reason why I wanted to head to that mall was to show the entertainment part of the mall. See, it has an inside amusement park, complete with a mini roller coaster! You can see the track (in red) in a couple of the pictures.
And this completes our mini weekend babymoon. We got in the car and headed back home. We got back around dinner time, relaxed, and went to bed. I know this was a wordy update, but I hope you enjoyed it.
And I don't even see any slowing down for at least another 2 weeks. What was that about me trying to relax before Peanut gets here? Well, that ain't happening! 
At least almost everything is "fun things", so it's not so bad. 
NOW it makes sense when you said "the three of us". 
I'll do a very mini TR for this soon (didn't take much pictures at all), then go back to our regular Disney programming. Besides celebrating my birthday next weekend, my crazy busy schedule is finally starting to slow down!
