Quebec City - and More Food!

The final day of the cruise was spent in Quebec City. We sailed in early, arriving at 8 a.m., and the sail up the St. Lawrence past the Island of Orleans was quite beautiful. No colour change in the trees yet, but when all those Sugar Maples start turning red, orange and yellow it will be spectacular.

The end of the island, with Montmorency Falls,
which we visited last year, in the distance.

We spent an hour after breakfast packing our suitcases, as we had an afternoon walking tour and a dinner date with Jim and Steve. We also wandered around the old town ourselves for a little while and then went back to the ship to meet for the tour. Here are some of the lovely old buildings we came across. Lots of good subjects for my travel sketches!

This is one of the murals in the old town.
The other, more famous one that depicts
300 years of history is covered up as
there is construction in the courtyard beside it.

As the afternoon tours were called in the Stardust Lounge, there were fewer and fewer people waiting, until there were only two left - us! It turned out that our tour had only the two of us plus our Tour Escort from the ship and a nice lady from Abercrombie & Kent, Crystal's new owner, who designs shore excursions. She was there to check out some of the tours and make sure all the local tour companies had everything properly organized.

Our guide met us outside the terminal and walked us over to the company offices, where we picked up 4 more guests for the tour. One of the other couples was going to be boarding Serenity when we left the next day, and the other was just visiting Quebec, but had sailed on Crystal before.

Once we started off on our tour, we found it very interesting, as our guide, Guy, took us through some of the back streets and offered a lot of historical information. But we were there for the advertised 5 course dinner which would be served in 4 different restaurants.

Course #1 at Va Bene, a new restaurant in the old town. Heirloom tomato salad with a very light Burrata cheese, and a glass of Italian wine for those who wanted one.

A view of the iconic Chateau Frontenac Hotel

Course #2 at Archibald Microbrewery and Restaurant. They don't brew on the premises here, but they do in some of their 6 locations. We had a small glass of their '1608' craft beer and a pipkin of delicious French Onion Soup, which is finished with the same beer. We recommend this as a casual lunch spot for anyone visiting Quebec City. It's so close to the port that we could see it from onboard the ship.

Inside the bar section of the restaurant they have
the most impressive Antler Chandelier

Guy thought we needed a bit of a walk after our soup, and we strolled partway up the hill to the Funicular which runs between the Old Town and Dufferin Terrace in front of the Chateau Frontenac. It is privately owned and sometimes it doesn't run. We were in luck, today wasn't one of those days.

Crystal Serenity from the Dufferin Terrace

And of course, we had to encounter more scaffolding! Our luck with finding iconic or historic buildings covered with the stuff is holding quite nicely.

Course #3 at Le Continental restaurant across the street from the hotel was a tableside flambe of Tiger Shrimp in a sauce of butter, cream, brandy and wine. This is one of the oldest continuously operating restaurants in the city, established in 1954, and does more than 75% of the cooking at your table. These guys in the white jackets aren't headwaiters, they're chefs in their own right!

And our final stop, for Courses #4 and #5, was in a rather different place - the old Augustine Convent, which is connected with the Hotel-Dieu, or hospital. The Augustine Sisters established the order in Quebec, as well as the hospital, in 1639, but once their convent shut down, and that was only recently, they allowed it to be converted into a wellness retreat. It also has a public restaurant called La Monastere.

The convent chapel with the hospital in behind

We had our meat course here, along with lots of information about the retreat, the restaurant and the food, from the head chef. Everything is organic, mostly gluten and lactose free, and sourced from within l50 miles of Quebec City. It was a very impressive and delicious end to our meal.

Course #4 was Slow Roasted Wild Boar Ribs with fresh green salad and a Savoury Granola created by the head chef. Very different and interesting, and the wild boar did taste more like pork than chicken! The boar is actually from a 'free range' boar farm about 50 km outside of the city.

Course #5 was a dessert of homemade Vanilla (yes, it is purple but tastes like vanilla) Macaron and traditional Creme au Sucre, or Quebec Fudge. The chef came up with the ideal of drizzling balsamic vinegar over the fudge, and it cuts the sweetness with a bit of acidity.

Overall it was a really great tour and we found some restaurants we will definitely try again when we are back in the city. 

We got back to the ship with about an hour to spare before we were meeting Jim and Steve, and were planning to just sit there and watch them eat. It turned out that we each had a salad and a half-portion of one of the lighter options on the menu, and, as usual, a great time with our friends.

One more post to come to close things off for this trip.