Old Quebec "en tout temps"

Malachi, on his morning runs, was really the first of us to explore outside the immediate neighborhood. He was struck by the street musicians and people he saw selling things out in the pedestrian streets of Old Quebec and decided he want to go out and do card tricks there himself the Saturday morning after we arrived. So Sam dropped him off at the Chateau with a table and chair, and then went home to work while the little ones napped and the girls and Teddy and me walked around the Old Quebec ourselves.

(We never did get a picture of Malachi at his table, sadly. But he did make, as he described it, "Twelve Canadian dollars and fifty Canadian cents.")

We found some pretty sunflowers outside a building whose name eludes me. Not that I've forgotten it—it actually eludes me. It's not on lists of landmarks. It's not on a plaque nearby. Not even Google Maps knows what it is. Is it a secret? The monument to Samuel Champlain (founder of Quebec) is in this little square. That is labeled on maps. But not the building.

View of the Château behind the "Monument to Faith" fountain. I read that it was put up in 1915 to commemorate 300 years since the Recollect Fathers (the first missionaries/friars/priests in Quebec) settled here in 1615. Over 400 years ago now! I think it's interesting that these first settlers called themselves the "Recollects" (Récollets)—related to the French word recueillement. It means "gathering one's thoughts in meditation or contemplation," and that seems so closely related to the motto Quebec adopted later: Je me souviens. "I remember." This isn't the place for all my thoughts about it, but I've been thinking a lot about remembering and what it means ever since we came here. My kids may tell you I have been overthinking it. But it definitely seems an important theme of this place, at least for me.

I love this little park, Parc Montmorency. This was our first time in it. It overlooks the river and has lots of cool old cannons to climb on.

Looking down the street Côte de la Montagne ("Side of the mountain") which connects the upper town and the lower town. I'm reading Willa Cather's Shadows on the Rock right now (historical fiction set in Quebec City in the 1690's—it's so good) and the main character Cécile and her father live on this street. It's old.

(By the way, I don't know why there are some sort of pink inflatable trolls (?) sitting around the old town in random places. Someone must have thought it was a good idea, I suppose.)

I love the view of the Chateau from the basse-ville. It looks so huge and imposing!

All the cutest little streets are the in the basse-ville too. Cobblestones and narrow alleys and fun little shops. It's fun to wander around. We bought some delicious maple caramel sauce at a store there!

Daisy with beret

There's a restaurant called Lapin Sauté—the hopping bunny. It just means the hopping bunny. I don't know why people keep trying to tell me there's some other meaning.

Back up in the haute-ville. Looking down at the basse-ville. I love the rooftops.

Water jets by the City Hall

Château Frontenac

Edifice Price—office building in an Art Deco style across from the City Hall. For the first week or so I couldn't tell this and Château Frontenac's middle tower apart from one another in the skyline. They stick up to about the same height.

So. All well and good. But the best time to see all these places is really in the early morning when you can be alone with your thoughts on these old/new streets. When it's quiet, you can contemplate, récollet like those first friars who spent their lives on this forbidding rocky cliff above the river. Let me show you:

Porte Saint-Louis, one of the old gates. (Did you know Quebec is the oldest walled city in North America?)

National Assembly Building

Château Frontenac visible over the old city wall. (Some of these pictures were taken on a day where the sky was smoky from wildfires. The sun was so strange and red I didn't even know what it was when it first came up! I thought it was the moon!)

From the walls of the citadel above

From the Promenade des Gouverneurs, the boardwalk overlooking the river

It's my favorite way to approach the Château! Gives you such a perfect view of it!

There's the Price Building

Funny hidden park behind some houses above the Château

Up on this side of the Château there's another real (operating) church! A Protestant Church (United Church). They have services in English and I keep wanting to go sometime.

This tiny church-like building is right across from it, but I can't tell if it's part of it or not.

Looking down past city hall in front of the Price Building

Another nice way to approach the old town is just straight along our street, Rue Richelieu, past the artillery park, past the Augustine Monastery, and down onto the Rue des Remparts.

There are cannons all along this part of the wall, too

There was some water line break or something going on one morning. I had to run under it and get wet! It felt kind of nice, though.

This is the Petit Séminaire de Quebec, which used to be a seminary and then a boarding school. I think it's a private high school now (Collège François-de-Laval).

You can see the Château from here

This is another of my favorite views. From Parc Montmorency across Côte de la Montagne. See the dark red cross at the bottom center of the photo? That marks Quebec's oldest cemetery—