Sunday (July 17th), we held off as long as we could and ended up leaving the house around 9:15am for our 12:05pm flight. We got to the park and ride (we got 3 days of free parking thanks to Bob's frequent travel), rode the shuttle bus, got through security without problem, had lunch at Five Guys/Jason's Deli in the terminal, and waited for our flight! The first plane was small, with 2 seats-aisle-2 seats. The flight went well, took about 90 minutes, and we landed in Toronto, had a good long walk through the terminal to security/customs/immigration, and had some time to wait before boarding our much larger plane to Montreal (despite my messing up the customs form and having to redo it). Toronto's Canada customs is pretty high-tech with lots of computer kiosks that really sped things up. This flight had the infamous tv screens in the back of each headrest, which was super exciting and awesome entertainment for the girls (and Mommy). That was a quick flight, less than an hour, and then we were in Montreal!
We got off the plane, walked down to the international arrivals area, and bought public transit tickets for everyone at a kiosk. Then we walked right outside and waited a very short time for the 747 express bus to downtown! The bus ride in to town took about 45 minutes, which was longer than we thought, but we since learned that the driver took "the long way". We were dropped just a couple of blocks from our hotel, the Renaissance Montreal, and took our stuff up to the room. This hotel was right in the middle of the newer downtown area and was busy with business travelers. It has been recently redone on the inside and they are working on renovating the exterior. It was full of modern art, and our favorite thing - swings in the lobby!
After we dropped our stuff, we walked a few blocks to our pre-determined dinner spot, the original (not the imposter down the street) Reuben's Deli. We had poutine (fries with brown gravy and cheese curds) with smoked meat, smoked meat sandwich, French dip (maybe? I can't remember what Bob had), pizza, and pasta. Erin finished half of Anna's pizza in addition to her pasta. It was really good, and the waitress gave us some ideas on sights. Then it was bedtime, so we blew up our air mattresses and crashed.
Monday was our "big" sightseeing day in Montreal. We started out early with the hotel breakfast (free with Bob's status vouchers - it was a really good buffet with lots of variety and Cheerios for Erin), then hopped on the metro (a station was 2 blocks from the hotel) to the Notre Dame basilica, which was really beautiful. The parish was founded in 1672, but this church was built when a bigger one was needed in the 1820s.
That was on one end of the Old Port, so from the church, we walked toward the river and saw some sights along the way. Montreal is proud of its festivals, and many places were either setting up or taking down from a festival at all times. We saw the front of the Science Centre (closed due to strike), walked on a "quai" (pier), saw a flea market, saw the Cirque du Soleil training facility, hit a playground, saw the Clock Tower, the Bonsecours Market, and some other historic buildings. It rained for a short time towards the end of this walk. We had a nice walk past some more buildings and then rode the metro to the Les Cours Mont Royal mall for lunch at the food court and Barbie Expo! Grandma and Bob had Greek gyros, I had a chicken caesar salad, and the girls had hot dogs. From there, we checked out the Barbies. It was really neat to see all the Barbies from different countries and those dressed like famous celebrities. There was also a moving runway for the Barbie fashion show!
Then, we headed back to the hotel for some swimming time, but only got maybe 30 minutes in between thunderstorms. So, the kids got a shower and we had a short rest.
We headed back out after the rain and saw Marie Reine du Monde cathedral, which right near our hotel. It was built as a quarter scale replica of St. Peter's in Rome. It was gorgeous! Erin really enjoyed all the churches on the trip. We then got on the metro and rode to Ille Ste. Helene and the Parc Jean Drapeau. The park was mostly deserted between festivals, but we helped ourselves to a small play area and saw the exterior of the Biosphere, which had some neat ecological displays and a pretty reflecting pool.
Then it was back to the subway to the Chateau Ramezay, which was a very old home that's been converted to a historical museum with gardens. It was interesting!
We walked from there to a pizza place for dinner, then back to the hotel via metro, stopping at what we thought was the stop closest to our hotel, but we must have gone out the wrong door because we had to go through a large underground mall (Place Ville Marie) and just HAD to get gelato on the way out!
Tuesday morning, we had hotel breakfast again and packed up our things and hit the metro again (we got a lot of use out of our 3-day passes!) to St. Joseph's Oratory on Mount Royal. This is in a residential area of the city, so we enjoyed seeing that. The church was built by now-Saint Brother Andre who had a special devotion to St. Joseph and performed many miracles on the site. We rode a shuttle bus up the hill and took the self-guided tour of the Votive Room, basilica, crypt, original chapel, and view of the city from in front of the church. It was really neat.
From there, our plan was to take a city bus (we walked to the closest bus stop which was a good distance from the church) to the top of Mount Royal and visit the park, but sadly the bus was out of service that day due to a bicycle race. Thankfully, Bob's phone worked internationally, so he was able to figure out what was going on and establish a Plan B. A helpful resident of the area said that the park was probably closed to cars as well. So, instead, we waited 30 minutes or so for a different bus that took us towards our hotel and then hopped on the metro for a few stops back to the hotel. After consulting with the hotel desk and considering visiting a family festival nearby, we opted for speed and had lunch across the street at Zibo, which was hopping with business people, but was also kid-friendly. We had Greek chicken salad, French onion soup, (I can't remember what else) chicken tenders for Anna, and Erin had ordered macaroni and cheese but got chicken tenders instead. After much anguish on her part, she got her macaroni and ate both lunches. Only our Erin. Bob left after lunch to bus it to the airport to get our rental car, a brand-new white Chevy Traverse, while we girls went to the rooftop pool, back for a quick shower, and packed our things to meet him downstairs.
We left Montreal around 3:00pm or so, and drove 2-1/2 hours to Quebec City. We took the "autoroute" (highway) and saw some pretty countryside and a gorgeous rainbow as we neared town. We arrived at our Marriott hotel in Quebec City, parked the car at a public garage right next to the hotel, dropped our things in the room, and walked into the old town for dinner. We had a yummy but very slow burger dinner, then walked back to the room to go to bed. Quebec City old town is not very big, but is really beautiful with amazing restored buildings. It's also easy and enjoyable to walk along the streets. We were excited to be there and couldn't wait to see more!
Wednesday, we got up and had breakfast at the hotel - another free-with-voucher breakfast, but they only let us have the cold items for free and there were no Cheerios, so it was not as Erin-friendly as the Renaissance was. However, Erin cooperated by eating a bagel and Anna discovered her new favorite breakfast: rice krispies mixed with froot loops! After breakfast, we got in the car and drove about 30 minutes to Sainte Anne du Beaupre town and shrine and visited the shrine for awhile.
This is a miracle site dating back to the 1600s, but the current church was built in the early-mid 1900s. It is a beautiful church with lots of side altars and a very large crypt church in the basement as well with pretty mosaics. There was a separate chapel building and outdoor Stations of the Cross that Sister Erin insisted on walking.
We got a blessing from a deacon in French and headed to Canyon Sainte Anne, the waterfall about 15 minutes from the shrine. This was awesome - a very well-done park with paved trails, lots of signage and many lookout points very close to the falls. It also has 3 suspension bridges at various points over the falls! We walked across the top two but didn't make it to the bottom one. I think we all thoroughly enjoyed this - until Erin's hunger alarm went off.
We headed to St. Hubert's chicken (kind of like a Denny's or Applebee's-type place that is Canadian) back in the town and had a yummy chicken lunch - sadly, there was a big tourist group ahead of us, so our food took awhile and therefore we didn't have time to stop at Montmorency Falls on the way back to Quebec City. We did get a nice view of those falls several times from the highway.
The reason we had to rush back to Quebec City was our big tea appointment at 3:15 at the Chateau Frontenac! We changed clothes quickly and walked through town to the Chateau. It was very fancy and had lots of yummy sandwiches, plus an amazing dessert buffet. We also enjoyed the view of the river from the windows of the restaurant.
After tea, we headed out and walked through a park area near the Chateau and then down to Lower Town, the oldest area of Quebec City. Many buildings dated back to the 1600s. It was really neat to see so much history. We rode the Funiculaire (outdoor cable car/elevator type thing) back up to Upper Town and wandered around for awhile, stopping in the Quebec City cathedral (very ornate, lots of gold, and Anna liked the sky paintings on the ceiling). Quebec City has a very festive atmosphere, lots of tourists (probably not the case in February!), and was really European. We all loved it. We adults were stuffed from the tea, so we just watched Erin eat a big bowl of pasta for dinner at the hotel restaurant with our food voucher. I had to get some French onion soup too, which was so good! Then, it was bedtime.
Thursday, we got up and repeated breakfast, then walked toward/on the wall that was built to protect Quebec City.
We stopped at a playground on our way to the changing of the guards at the Citadelle, which was quite the show!
We also visited the museum on the grounds, then walked towards the Plains of Abraham, then back to the hotel to pick up our bags and car, then drove back into the Plains of Abraham park area which was under some construction. From there, we left Old Town and found a sandwich shop in the residential area. Again, I enjoyed seeing "where the people live". We had a picnic in the car while driving to the Ille d' Orleans, and old-fashioned island with farms, orchards, etc. It also has a world-famous chocolaterie, which we tried for ourselves. Wow, was it good! We all got ice cream dipped in different kinds of chocolate (except Erin with her vanilla) and sat on these rocking table/bench type things. It was great!
Then, back to the car for a short tour of the island and back to Montreal for our last night. We checked in at our Residence Inn at the airport, let the kids swim in the indoor pool, and ordered pizza for dinner. Bob and I went out and got Montreal bagels after the kids went to bed...they were more chewy and less salty (?) than the bagels we have here.
Friday morning, we left the hotel early and had a quick breakfast there (a big continental breakfast, but alas, still no Cheerios), then dropped off our car, went through security, and had plenty of time before our flight. Bob and Gina got to try the famous Tim Horton's coffee in the airport...it was really good! The flight was on time and had the awesome tv's again. We got to Toronto and had a much longer customs/immigration process, complete with computer malfunctions and only one security officer for a huge line of people. I may say that our experience with Canadian customs was much better than with American! We had plenty of time, unlike some of the other people around us in line. We got panninis and pizza slices for lunch, then waited for our flight back to Raleigh. This was the only flight of our trip that was delayed, by about 90 minutes, but at least we did not have a connection after that. The excitement of that flight was Anna losing a tooth, followed by its next-door neighbor that night at home. We landed around 5:30 and had a smooth trip to the shuttle bus and parking lot, and then to home!
So, it was a really great trip. The weather was beautiful except for some scattered rain on Monday. The highs were around 80, lows 65-70. It felt so nice compared to NC in July! The kids really did great with all of the walking, sightseeing, flights, hotels, food, etc., and we are excited to try another trip with them soon. (Did someone say Europe???) I am so glad that we went and got to see an area that is so different from our own but yet is so close to us. It is definitely very French, with French being the main language on all signs and heard spoken by most by people. Montreal is a big city with 3 million people, and Quebec City is much smaller and has that big tourist area in Old Town. Both were wonderful places to see. I would love to go back again and see more! Anna saw a ski resort near Ste. Anne and agreed to come skiing in the winter. All of our pictures are posted HERE!
Friday morning, we left the hotel early and had a quick breakfast there (a big continental breakfast, but alas, still no Cheerios), then dropped off our car, went through security, and had plenty of time before our flight. Bob and Gina got to try the famous Tim Horton's coffee in the airport...it was really good! The flight was on time and had the awesome tv's again. We got to Toronto and had a much longer customs/immigration process, complete with computer malfunctions and only one security officer for a huge line of people. I may say that our experience with Canadian customs was much better than with American! We had plenty of time, unlike some of the other people around us in line. We got panninis and pizza slices for lunch, then waited for our flight back to Raleigh. This was the only flight of our trip that was delayed, by about 90 minutes, but at least we did not have a connection after that. The excitement of that flight was Anna losing a tooth, followed by its next-door neighbor that night at home. We landed around 5:30 and had a smooth trip to the shuttle bus and parking lot, and then to home!
So, it was a really great trip. The weather was beautiful except for some scattered rain on Monday. The highs were around 80, lows 65-70. It felt so nice compared to NC in July! The kids really did great with all of the walking, sightseeing, flights, hotels, food, etc., and we are excited to try another trip with them soon. (Did someone say Europe???) I am so glad that we went and got to see an area that is so different from our own but yet is so close to us. It is definitely very French, with French being the main language on all signs and heard spoken by most by people. Montreal is a big city with 3 million people, and Quebec City is much smaller and has that big tourist area in Old Town. Both were wonderful places to see. I would love to go back again and see more! Anna saw a ski resort near Ste. Anne and agreed to come skiing in the winter. All of our pictures are posted HERE!
