Québec Adventure

"Fascism is cured by reading and racism is cured by traveling" -Miguel de Unamuno

We're off on a new adventure...this time by car. We're heading to Québec City. It's been on our list of places to visit for a long time. It felt a little daunting to go by boat, so we decided to drive over this week to celebrate the captain's birthday.

History Lesson:

Québec City is the capital of Québec. It has a feel and look of an old European city with its charming cobblestoned streets lined with cafes, patisseries and artisan shops. It’s the only walled city north of Mexico. The French explorer Samuel de Champlain founded Québec early in the 17th century, and the ramparts, gates and other fortifications that surround the city serve as a reminder of its role in the colonial wars for control of the Americas.

The name "Québec", which comes from the Algonquin word kébec meaning "where the river narrows", originally referred to the area around Québec City where the Saint Lawrence River narrows to a cliff-lined gap. Québec is the only province in Canada to have a predominantly French-speaking population, with French as the sole provincial official language.

Québec’s Upper Town (Haute-Ville) is perched on cliffs overlooking the St. Lawrence River and provide views of the countryside for many miles beyond. Accessible by steep stairs or via a funicular car, Old Québec’s Lower Town (Basse-Ville) has its own historic charms. It sprang up around the city’s harbor and was the original neighborhood of the city. Over the next few days we plan to explore every nook and cranny.

The orange section of this map is Old Québec (upper town), the purple section is the Old Port and the red section is du Petit-Champlain (both sections are lower town)...all places we plan to visit while we're in Québec City. To see details on this map, click on the picture to enlarge.

A short video showing Old Quebec City