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We decided to do the hop on hop off bus today despite the threatening sky. The first bus left at 9.30am from our hotel. We wanted to do the entire loop first & got to stop 4 before it started to rain. I had forgotten to bring the ponchos with me so we moved downstairs on the bus. After a while it seemed to stop so we went back upstairs and put up with a bít of rain periodically. Quebec is a very old & historic city and we got to see the old (upper) section and some of the new (lower) section. The upper section was chosen as it is surrounded by cliffs on 3 sides making it easy to defend. The Upper Town was predominantly settled by the British and the French & Irish lived in Lower Town.
The city has some beautiful buildings but not the money to restore & upkeep them. We saw one church that was now renting out it's basement to a shop, another that was now a library and a third that had been sold and was now condos. The Notre-Dame cathedral lost one of it's spires in a fire and they haven't had the money to replace it. The cathedral celebrated it's 350th anniversary this year. The oldest house in Old Quebec was built in 1675 ánd now houses a restaurant.
After seeing the sights on the tour, we got off back at Chateau Frontenac, got our ponchos and caught the funicular railway down the hill to Place Royale which is an area filled with shops, galleries & restaurants. It was definitely aimed at tourists but there were some nice things there. We ate lunch - French favourites of French Onion soup and Croque Monsieur & watched a glass blowing display. There are some temporary art installations around the area including giant pigeons with a Campbell's soup can, an alley filled with pink and orange pool noodles stuck on the walls & bright coloured children's plastic toys suspended from railings. It certainly added colour to the area.
After getting the funicular back up to the top, we climbed the 310 (there was a sign to tell us) steps up to The Plains of Abraham. This is a very green parkland area containing lots of cannons, the Citadel, Joan of Arc park and lots of autumn trees which was named after the original owner of the land - a farmer named Abraham Martin. It is the site of a battle between the British & French which the British won in the last battle lasting only 15mins.
After walking around a bit & finding we couldn't visit the Citadel except on a tour as it is still in use by the military, we got on a hop on hop off back to town. We found a pub & had a drink before going back to the hotel for an hour. We headed out for dinner & found a small but busy restaurant not far from the hotel. We watched it pour with rain which stopped long enough for us to get back to the hotel. Hopefully tomorrow will be drier.
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