On our last full day in Quebec, we decided to walk near the ramparts or old city wall, and also visit the Jean-Baptiste neighborhood. Back to the map! See the red circle where we stayed? The walls are a shaded area just to the left of that, following around the edge of the gray circled old city. However, the walls were not maintained for decades, while the gated areas are in really good repair, the other walls are currently undergoing some construction. Instead of walking on the walls now, you can walk near them, at the street level. So we did this for a bit, then crossed through on Rue Saint-Jean (the big street just south of the red circle below) and west, into the Jean-Baptiste neighborhood.
The neighborhood is really charming, lots of little shops and restaurants. We stopped for a hot chocolate at the Chocolate Museum / shop. There were lovely displays and a window so you could see the chocolate being made! Like a little Wonka chocolate factory!
Quite satisfied from the chocolate break, we walked back inside the city walls and visited a public library that was a really excellent example of an adaptive reuse of an old building.
Here’s the view looking through the very well maintained city gate. There’s a square with ice skating just outside this gate.
We then followed the wall around through more of the western part of the old town over to the part that’s right by the river. We walked into the Fairmont hotel and took a quick photo in the courtyard area before spotting a celebrity – Gene Simmons of KISS fame and his wife! No photo of them, we only confirmed the celebrity sighting after the paparazzi moment passed.
Then we walked up toward the citadel walls, where the was another really amazing view of the St Lawrence river heading out to sea. Some other things we saw over the course of the day here too.
Then in the afternoon and evening we went back to Strom Spa and spent many hours there. So delightful, we really took full advantage of this visit, with reading time, dinner, and much soaking during daylight and evening. So relaxing! Although our uber driver on the way home did mention the big snow storm coming on the way home and that caused the author here to have some concern about flights the following day… But turns out the Quebecois know how to handle some snow (not a surprise!) We had no delays at all in the morning and got home as planned on Wednesday afternoon.
Loved the chance to visit Quebec City, and highly recommend a visit!
Quebec City looks so lovely and interesting! The hot chocolate looks especially chocolaty!
I’m looking at the very steep copper roofs on some of the buildings and wondering how they were built.
Looks like such a great few days! And yes I imagine they know how to handle snow!