Quebec City and the Countryside

 Our revised itinerary also provided us with an overnight in Quebec City. Our originally scheduled tour did go out yesterday, Sunday, and it was a good thing, as on Monday morning it is currently windy, raining and about 12 degrees. It is supposed to improve in the middle of the day so we can go for a walk around the old town and maybe find someplace to have lunch. We're scheduled to leave for Saguenay at 11:00 tonight.

Yesterday's weather was quite nice for our all-day tour in and around Quebec City. We had a really entertaining tour guide, Gilles, who, once he found out we were from Toronto, kept making jokes about the Leafs:  Did you know that Toronto is the only place in the country where the 'leafs' fall in the spring?? Otherwise, he was very good.

We started the tour in the old city and then drove up through Battlefields Park (Plains of Abraham) and the Chateau Frontenac Hotel for some time on our own.

The famous Quebec Mural was painted
in the 1990s and depicts the city's history

The Plains of Abraham

This is a statue of Joan of Arc donated
by 'anonymous x 2' who were so
enchanted by Quebec City that they gave it
for this park on the edge of the Plains.

Nothing around here comes without a story -
this statue of Champlain isn't really him. No likeness
could be found, so the sculptor ended up using, without realizing,
the face of Botticelli, who worked for the French government as a
(not completely honest) keeper of the treasury. Gilles says: They have
a statue of an Italian crook paying homage to the founder of the city.  

Then we started heading out of the city toward the east. Our first stop was Montmorency Falls. The falls are 270 feet high, half again as high as Niagara Falls, and mark the end of the Montmorency River. If one has time and energy, there's a trail that goes almost to the falls that includes staircases totaling over 400 steps from the bottom to the top of the cliff. For those not wanting to do that, there's also an enclosed gondola. And for real thrill seekers, you can either walk across a bridge over the falls or Zipline across.

After Montmorency Falls, we stopped at the Albert Gilles copper art studios. This is, apparently, the last art studio of its kind in North America, where they specialize in embossed copper pieces all made by hand. Albert, originally from France, made custom pieces for the rich and famous in the US until he moved to Quebec. Then he did a lot of work for the church, especially the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre. His daughters and grand-daughter run the business now and do the designing. The work is absolutely amazing, given how much work is involved in the embossing process.

He also produced what he called the 'Christorama', 50 separate pieces depicting the life of Christ. They are all on display at the studio and are just amazing works.

Some of the beautiful work they do. The 
cloisonne painting is still done
by the widow of Albert Gilles

Our next stop was for lunch at the Auberge Baker, a popular and well-known restaurant. Our lunch was a buffet, but it included a lot of local specialties: pea soup, tourtiere, meatballs, home-cured salami and pastrami, and even maple-sugar pie. It was a delicious meal, and we were ready to tackle the next stop - Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre.

The Auberge

Pea soup, tourtiere, home-cured meats,
devilled egg and some roast beef

The Basilica is huge and very impressive on the inside as well as the outside. Its origins are the same as many others around the world. Seafarers from France found themselves in very stormy waters and prayed to Sainte-Anne for help, promising to erect a shrine to her wherever they might land. This was their landing point, on which three churches were eventually built, each larger than the previous one. People were said to have been cured of illnesses and disabilities here, so it became, and still is, a worldwide point of pilgrimage. It has become such an important place of worship that 2 popes, John Paul II and Francis, have celebrated masses here.

There are 3 sets of doors like this, all hand
made by Albert Gilles.

Donated crutches no longer needed 
by pilgrims who were cured

The central piece is about 7 feet high
and was also made by Albert Gilles

Not only did we see the main church, but we also went downstairs to the Immaculate Conception chapel, where there is also one of only 2 copies of Michelangelo's Pieta on display.

There are other chapels outside the Basilica. We didn't visit them as we were short of time.

Our final stop on the countryside tour was on the Ile d'Orleans, the island of Orleans. There's lots of agriculture on this large island, but it is most well-known for the sugar maples and the maple sugar and maple syrup they produce. We were given a short presentation on the process from harvesting the sap from the trees to the various products that are made, all just by boiling the sap to various temperature points and then cooling it in certain ways. Everyone was given a tasting of maple syrup, maple butter and we made our own maple taffy sticks. Thick maple syrup was poured over crushed ice (in winter they use snow) and then we rolled it around a popsicle stick. Of course it was too warm for it to harden, but it tasted amazing nonetheless.

In the evening we had made a dinner reservation at The Colonnade, which is the buffet restaurant onboard. On a few occasions per cruise, they do a Thomas Keller Family-Style dinner and we were encourage to try it out as it is a really different concept.

There's no buffet for this dinner, but a set menu that is served family-style for the number of people at the table. The menu was Salad with Green Goddess Dressing, Slow-Cooked Pork Baby Back Ribs, Manchego cheese and finally, a Potted Cheesecake for dessert. Here are the photos:

It was a really great and unique dinner service, and quite delicious. We're booked for the Fried Chicken Dinner later in the cruise.

Finally, last night's entertainment was a dance party. It was supposed to be outside, but the possibility of rain, which did show up, moved it into The Club, the venue for live music in the evenings. It certainly was hopping, and all of the entertainment staff came out to sing along with the band and mingle with the guests.

We had met one of the singers, Tiffany, on the first evening and had a nice chat with her. The first production show they did was on Saturday night - an Evening with Sir Tim Rice - and we found it fantastic. She, and all the other singers, have great voices and did a spectacular job.

Singers from left: Kimberley, EJ, Tiffany and Callum

Well, the weather does seem to be clearing a bit, so we'll see if we can get out for that walk. More later!

Trois-Rivieres, the Unexpected First Port

 We don't know how the town was going to react to us being here at the beginning of October, when we were supposed to stop for one day, but it certainly hasn't been anything special for us to be here a week early and for an overnight.

Trois-Rivieres seems like a typical small town. It was originally settled in the early 1600s as a trading post with the Algonquin first nations, and through its history became an iron-working and pulp-producing centre. There are museums for both in and around town, as well as an Ursuline Monastery established in 1634, the Old Prison, and a beautiful cathedral.

We didn't have a tour booked, and we're not sure if they were able to switch the original tours to the earlier date, so we spent a couple of hours each morning just wandering around town. Here are some of the highlights:

The main entrance to the Ursuline Monastery church

The Cathedral

Every window is stained glass. The interior 
of the cathedral is quite beautiful.

This community is across the St. Lawrence from Trois-Rivieres

The Military Museum - Larry found the
tanks very interesting

The Old Prison and outbuildings

A whimsical bench at Champlain Park

There are lots of pretty houses here with lovely
window shapes and stained glass. Many are two-
and three level with outside spiral staircases
to reach the upper levels.

It seems that the largest employers here are the governments - municipal and provincial - the pulp and paper mills that are still running, and Canada Post. There's a large postal building in the centre of town.

While we were at lunch today (Saturday), we found out that our new itinerary has been finalized. We won't be visiting Newfoundland at all, just Quebec, and will just barely reach the mouth of the St. Lawrence River. See the Our Itinerary sidebar to see the changes. We'll all just have to make the best of it, and hope Seabourn does the originally planned cruise again when there's no hurricane bearing down on us.

This afternoon we plan to take a few more photos around the ship for the next post. This evening is our 'formal night' and first opportunity to see the singers and dancers of the ensemble in a show based on Tim Rice's work. Last night the show was presented by Suzanne O Davis, a singer/pianist whose show was based around Carole King's Tapestry album. She was very good!

Our First Look at Seabourn Quest

 We made our way to Billy Bishop Airport on Thursday morning through what turned out to be rather light traffic, possibly because we had our limo driver avoid the 404/Don Valley Parkway/401 exchange completely. so we were about 2 hours early for our 10:20 flight. Porter had cancelled the 11:20 flight and put us on this one instead.

Too bad that our plane was late coming in from Ottawa. By the time all the turnaround preparations were finished and we were all on board, we took off precisely at 11:30 anyway!

The flight was comfortable and uneventful, although our private limo pickup at the Montreal airport didn't show. After looking for him for 15 minutes, we paid for our own ride and were at the port within 20 minutes. Seabourn will refund us the cost of the no-show.

The ship (docked in Trois-Rivieres). Larry: How do you
make a small ship look big? Have it be the only one
in town!

We know that Quest is a small ship, only about half the size of Crystal Serenity, but the layout is completely different and it has taken us a little time to get used to it. It is a 'vertical' layout instead of 'horizontal' like most ships. All of the guest staterooms and suites are in the forward part of the ship, and the common areas are aft. We'll post photos around the ship as we wander around the various venues.

But we'll start with our suite. It is a somewhat odd layout in that, to get to the bathroom, which is a good size, from the bedroom, you have to go through the walk-in closet! There's a dining table and a couch area with a coffee table. And the verandah is big enough for a table and 2 chairs as well as a couple of lounge chairs with footstools. We'll have to see if it's nice enough to use them once post-tropical depression Fiona finishes with the areas we're supposed to be sailing in.

The sitting area and dining table 

Bedroom area

Bathroom - the toilet is through the door 
and is also accessible from the hall as
a 'powder room'.

The verandah

The storm, which hit Cape Breton and Ile de la Madeleine this morning (Saturday), has already caused an itinerary change for us. We're sitting in Trois-Rivieres at the moment for our second day. Tomorrow we will be in Quebec City for another two days, and after that, we'll see what happens. We may get to St. John's if the seas calm down, but some of the other ports may be a literal wash-out given the amount of rain they're supposed to be getting this weekend. We'll keep you up to date on our new itinerary.

We didn't do much more than get our bearings on Thursday afternoon. Our sailout to Trois-Rivieres wasn't until 11:00, and we missed it.

And Now for Something Completely Different...

....still a cruise, but unlike every other one we've done, this one will be entirely in Canada! We're also trying a cruise line we've not been on before - Seabourn. We will be sailing on the Seabourn Quest for 12 days Montreal round-trip starting tomorrow.

We're not entirely sure of the itinerary, as, while I'm writing this, Hurricane Fiona is racing up the eastern seaboard and is expected to hit Cape Breton and the Gulf of St. Lawrence on Saturday. We're supposed to be smack-dab in the middle of the Gulf on Saturday, and so far we've not seen any itinerary updates from Seabourn. We're supposed to call in at Havre-St.-Pierre on Saturday on our way to l'Anse aux Meadows and St. John's, NL before heading back up the St. Lawrence with a few Quebec stops along the way.

You'll have to follow along to see just where we end up!!!

Amsterdam Part 2: Our Post-Cruise Visit

We booked to stay in Amsterdam for 3 nights after the cruise. This time we stayed at the Amstel Hotel, famous in Amsterdam and one of the older hotels, dating back to 1867. It is now an Intercontinental Hotel and the one Tauck uses for pre- and post-cruise guest stays.

It certainly is beautiful outside and inside. The only disappointment we had was that venues, like the A Bar and the Amstel Restaurant, were not open due to staffing issues. There is a gorgeous patio attached to the A Bar, but we couldn't use it because there was not enough hotel staff to service it. Such is the problem in Europe at the moment. All the people who used to work in the hospitality industry went to other things when COVID closed hotels and restaurants down, and there hasn't been enough new labour to fill the breach.

The hotel from the Amstel River

The A Bar, was used as a hospitality
lounge for Tauck guests waiting for
airport transfers or hotel rooms.

The foyer. It's easy to tell this is
a classic hotel

In our room, the wallpaper and headboard
patterns were an exact match.

We found the Amstel to be in a perfect location to be able to walk to most places in the downtown area. The only restaurant open in the hotel was the Brasserie. A little less formal but very nice, with tables outside along the river.

This is the beautiful Amstel Restaurant, only open for High Tea on Saturdays and Sundays. If we had known that when we came back from our walk on Sunday, we just might have stayed for tea instead of having lunch outside. The hotel is being closed later this year for about 6 months for renovation, according to one of the receptionists. It would be nice to visit again later, when hopefully all of the venues would be open again.

When we arrived on Sunday morning, we knew we would have a fairly long wait for our room, so we left our extra bags with the luggage and started out. When you're used to having your city mapped in straight lines, Amsterdam can be a bit confusing, as it is more of a spider-web shape. We eventually made our way to the Niewmarkt, or New Market and the Waag, the Weigh House. This building was a gate the original city walls.

After consulting the map to see exactly where we were and how we would get back to the hotel, we took a route back that would lead us through Dam Square, where the Royal Palace and the National Memorial to Soldiers and Resistance Fighters in World War II are located. And, as if they knew we were coming, the memorial was covered in scaffolding!

The Waag

The current view of the National Memorial

The Royal Palace, not used as a residence 

Dinner at the Brasserie in the hotel was delicious, but we really couldn't eat a lot. Already pretty 'fooded-out', we just had main courses and shared a lovely cheese platter for dessert. The sunset view from our room at about 10:30 was gorgeous.

When we checked in, Larry talked to the concierge about getting tickets for the Rijksmuseum. We had heard that it was still required to book ahead for capacity control, and that some of the smaller museums were almost impossible to get into on short notice. We got tickets for Monday morning, and walked the 15 minutes to the museum from the hotel.

We spent about 3 1/2 hours in the museum and saw a good portion of the exhibits. The most famous one, Rembrandt's Night Watch, is currently under restoration, so it is in a glass room while the work is being done. So I guess this is the equivalent to scaffolding for the painting! It's fortunate that we weren't here a few months earlier, as the painting spent a couple of months face-down so they could remove the old frame. We wouldn't have been able to see it at all.

It was quite busy, even with the capacity control. It was hard to get close to some of the exhibits, like the Jan Vermeer paintings, but we found some other exhibits that were very interesting:

This is a full-sized work by Willem van de Velde
in ink on canvas. The detail work is amazing. These must have taken
him a very long time to do.

A Delftware Violin

A Windmill on a Polder Waterway
by Paul Constantin Gabriel. It just looks
so serene...

A Van Gogh Sketch: Wheat Reaper

We asked the concierge for a restaurant recommendation for lunch after the museum. He suggested Nel, with a patio on a shady square part way between the museum and the hotel. We found the restaurant and had a light lunch. There was a flower market and a cheese stand in the same square. If we had been staying longer, I would have picked up some cheese to nibble on in our room.

There are lots of houseboats in the larger
canals, and many of them have container gardens
on them. More later.

Lunch - Shrimp Croquettes with
Salad and Bread

A 'Toasty' - Grilled Sandwich with
cheese and turkey

For dinner that night, we just shared two appetizers and had some ice cream for dessert. We had to start cutting down sometime, and the appetizers were large and delicious.

Smoked Salmon on a Phyllo crostada

Caesar Salad with Chicken Thigh and a
Poached Egg

We certainly didn't any more than that!

On Tuesday we decided to do an early canal sightseeing tour, and get our packing done afterwards. There are lots of companies doing canal tours in all sorts of boats. If you're adventurous, you can even rent a boat and drive around the canals yourself.

The nearest canal boat tour starting point to us was a 10 minute walk away, not quite at the Rijksmuseum, and we were there by 10:00, so we had a boat almost to ourselves, except for another family of 4.

Our canal boat

The Rijksmuseum

This is the Lockkeeper's House
at one of the old locks

These are some of the rather well-known Crooked Houses

I wanted to take a photo of the bridge, but
the boat got in the way - had to keep the picture
because of the boat's name!

Our boat captain was very informative, especially since we were the only ones up near the front. He gave us quite a bit of info that wasn't on the recorded explanations. There are literally thousands of houseboats in the canals of Amsterdam. The city has stopped issuing permits for new spots, and the current sale price of these boats is around 650,000 Euros. Even one that we passed that was a true 'handyman's nightmare' apparently sold for over 300,000 Euros.

We had enough time to go for another walk in the afternoon, so we headed toward the Botanical Garden. On the way we found the Holocaust Memorial, quite a moving tribute with 102,000 bricks, each bearing the name of one of the Dutch Jews who did not survive. The walls of bricks, looked at from above, form the Hebrew word meaning 'in memory of'.

Some of the bricks in one of the walls

The Botanical Gardens

Some of these houseboats are quite lovely

Once everything was packed up, we headed down to the Brasserie for another dinner of appetizers. We sat outside for a good part of our meal, but it was quite warm, by Amsterdam standards, and once the sun dropped below the edge of the awning it was going to be unbearable. This time dinner was Caesar Salad and Tuna Tartare.

You never know what kind of boat will sail by! This one reminded us of Larry's cousin Jim's raft that they used to ride around Walker's Lake. Nothing like seeing the canals of Amsterdam in style!

We were out of the hotel by 8:30 on Wednesday morning for our flight home. It was a great cruise and a lovely time in Amsterdam, but we were ready to go home for the summer. Travelling has returned, a little differently, perhaps, and we'll see how things continue to change with COVID still around.

Our next trip will be in September, closer to home as we'll be sailing the St. Lawrence River from Montreal to St. John's, Newfoundland and back.