Montreal & Quebec City {Day 3}

Day 3 began with a taxi ride to a downtown Montreal car rental. I was ultimately headed to Quebec City, which is about a 3 hour drive, but I drove on about 30 miles northeast of the Quebec City to see some sites first.

I was a little nervous about driving this on my own. (I don't think I've mentioned it, but when the trip was booked, I was going with my friend Abby. A few weeks after we booked our trip, Abby was diagnosed with Breast Cancer. She spent the summer doing chemo, and wasn't able to make the trip. She was greatly missed, and not just on the drive!). I was nervous about driving because all the signs were in French rather than English, and once I actually got on the road and saw lots of signs like this, I was nervous about hitting a moose!

I drove up to Cote-De-Beaupre first to the Basilique Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré.

It is named for Québec's patron saint (the mother of the Virgin Mary).

More than 1 million pilgrims come each year to this region's most famous religious site.

I saw a sign going in that said photography was allowed, but missed the sign they put up during mass saying (mostly in French) that photography wasn't allowed during "celebrations". Oops.

I drove back toward Quebec City and crossed a bridge to Île D'Orléans. According to the guidebooks, the Algonquins called it Minigo, the "Bewitched Place". I totally get that. It bewitched me.

The homes I posted a few pics up, all have the St. Lawrence river behind them.

It's supposedly one of the best places to get a feel for rural Quebec.

I mean, are these not the most perfect carrots you've ever seen?

I bought a basked of strawberries that had just been picked (picking your own was also an option)

Looking across the SL river at Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré

I drove around the entire island. About every 60 seconds I said "Oh my word!". Each site was more stunning than the last. Some of the best sites didn't have great places to pull over to take pics. Of course the various churches and attached cemeteries all had parking.

I'm pretty sure this is is located in St-Francois.

Each of the little town's had their own stone church and cemetery.

This Chocolaterie had quite the line for ice cream thanks to the extra-warm weather. Think of a Dairy Queen dipped cone but with super legit chocolate and the chocolate was about 5x thicker than the DQ version.

This is Ste-Jean.

I wanted to get some food at this cute place called La Boulange which was across from the church. I went in and stood in the lengthy line for a few minutes, but there was no a/c, and the ovens were going, and I decided I didn't want it bad enough.

I finished driving around the island, I crossed back over to the mainland, and went to Chute Montmorency.

It's 27 stories tall, which my guidebook says is almost double height of Niagara's.

After the falls, I drove on in to Quebec City. I dropped off my rental car, and took a taxi to my hotel for the next 3 nights. I stayed Hotel Manior Victoria, which is located in Old Québec in Upper Town.