Day 3 - In Quebec City

Driven today 35 Km
Total driven: 980 Km

We started the day with breakfasst at McDonald's and we were at the gate St. Louis before 9 am.  We wanted to be at the Citadel by 9:30 so went for a walk

This is another view of the city walls

  We went by the old United Church

And we passed by the convent or the order of the Sacred Heart

We made it to the Citadel shortly after 9 am. The Citadel is an active military base and it housed the Royal 22nd Regiment.  The only unit of the Canadian forces that is 100% French speaking.  Since 22 in French is Vingt-deux, they are usually called in English Canada the Van Doos.  They participated in WW I, WW II and lately thye were in Afghanistan.

The soldiers wearing the red coats are real members of the Van Doos

The whole reason to be there at that time was to watch the change of the guard

 
The ceremony started right on time at 10 am,

I tiook lots of pictures of the red coats on the parade grounds

The goats name is Bautiste and it was given to the Regiment by Queen Elizabeth II and has been the mascot of the unit for many years

Bautiste is a very well behaved goat

This is the Regiment"s flag

And this is the flag of the Canadian Armed Forces

After the change of the guard we took the tour of the fort.  This was our guide.  A very likable and entertaining young lady.  She asked where people came from and there many Canadians, some  Mexicans, Chinese and some from the States.  Later she explained that The united States had attacked the fort around 1790 but, she said they had a big snow storm so they just retunrd running home.  They tried again in the war of 1812 without success and never  came back then she looked at our visitors from the States and said "until now"

In the tour we visited a couple of small museums, the first one was dedicated to the battle of the Plains of Abraham where the British forces defeated the French garrison and the era of British North America began.  The Plains of Abrahan are next to the fort.

There are some heavy arms kept as mementos, like this Sherman tank from WW II

Or this German gun from WW I

The views of the city and the St. Lawrence river are pretty amazing

This is Kyla, our guide with one of her funny faces

We were just on time to watch the traditional  noon cannon shooting

After the Citadel we walked to the promanade and took the funicular to the lower town, the oldest part of the city.  You can see that the houses look older, unfortunately now is just a tourist trap

I was surprised to see that there are quite a few fur stores

We went also to visit the Museum of Civilization.  The ground floor is dedicated to the History of the French Canadians.  Very interesting but too dark to take pictures without flash, thus no pictures.  Upstaris they had and exhibit on micro-bots guarded at the entrance by a Terminator and by Ironman

By then I was very tired  and I think the wife was too.  We took the funicular to the upper town
and walked to the Cathedral.

We arrived early fot the 5 Pm Mass and we found that right in front of the church there was an accident; two buses collided pretty hard so the street was closed and there were all kinds of policemen around,

We did have a chance to attend Mass which of course was in French.  Marvelous organ playing.

And then we just walked back to the car and to the hotel.