Violet Sky

At the time of writing this blog entry, I have 67 Google Flights alerts set to email me when prices change. If they ever start limiting the number of alerts you can set, I’ll be really, really sad, but for now, I keep loading them up with aspirational and planned trips to keep track of prices throughout the year.

In November of 2023, I was minding my own business when I got an email and a push notification from Google Flights – the random week in July 2024 that I had been tracking for an aspirational trip (which truthfully I had forgotten I was tracking) randomly dropped 40% in price. After a very brief discussion with my husband, I bought the tickets, and suddenly we were going to Québec City!

I took 4 years of French in high school, with a great teacher who was so passionate about the language that she has since passed the C2 language exam (the highest level of proficiency a non-native speaker can achieve) and lives part-time in Lille, France. I’ve had a fair amount of residual French rattling around inside my brain since then, and have tried in recent years to refresh it by consuming French-language written and spoken content, and occasionally dabbling in Duolingo’s extremely long French course. When I was in high school, I originally wanted to major in International Business and attend McGill University in Montréal, with the thought that doing so would give me a job that paid me to travel and speak French.

The larger impetus for tracking this location, however, was my husband, who has always wanted to visit Québec City. His favorite fun fact about the city is that it’s the only walled city in North America. This and Mexico City has been on his bucket list trips for years, so it was an easy sell when plane tickets for four people went on sale for less than $2000 round trip.

The flights themselves were uneventful, though Air Canada rescheduled us four or five times in the months between booking and the trip, and our very nice initial schedule was transformed into a choice between leaving the US at 6 a.m. or arriving in Québec City at 11:30 p.m. We opted for the early morning flight to allow us time to get to the Airbnb and buy groceries, walk around a little, and generally not have to immediately go to bed.

We didn’t have any plans for the first full day so we set out to check out the city. Our Airbnb was located at the bottom of the hill that the famous Chateau Fairmont is located upon, so every morning started with a 20 minute hike uphill. My husband and I didn’t mind, but the kids didn’t enjoy it much, especially when we took them walking up the famous Cap-Blanc stairs instead of the more gentle and indirect route through the old part of the city.

We wandered around the most touristy part of the old town, admiring the historical murals painted on the sides of the buildings. The streets and area felt very European – close in, rough stone instead of pavement, and quaintly decorated. The area was having a heat spell with corresponding humidity (85F and 85% humidity!) so it was a day of venturing out for several hours, coming back to the Airbnb to recover in the AC for a bit, and going back out again. We ate some delicious and pricy Italian food at Bello and some less pricy but also delicious Persian food at Restaurant Shiraz. The latter option took a long time to bring our food, which turned out to be a blessing since there was somewhat brief but intense downpour while we were inside.

The next day, we had scheduled a tour at a mead distillery. My husband and I both like mead, so when looking for things to do in Québec City, this jumped out as a fairly affordable but interesting option. Our daughter is 18, which is the drinking age in Canada, so we had the odd but also oddly fun experience of drinking with our (usually underage) daughter in public.

Apikol has bee hives located throughout the city, including one inside the distillery that we got to watch as the owner/tour guide explained the process of making mead from bee tending to final product. They specialize in drier meads (my husband was a huge fan) but also make vodka, gin, liqueurs, and something called eau de vie, or “water of life.” The internet tells me that eau de vie is actually brandy, but it tasted nothing like any brandy I’ve had before – I hate brandy, and I liked this. The place is small and run by the owners, both of whom were lovely. We ended up buying a bottle of the mead, a bottle of the liqueur, and the sample pack of the spirits.

On the first day, I had wanted to do a tour of the Citadel, but the rest of the group wasn’t very interested. On day 3, we gave the kids the option of staying at the Airbnb while we wandered around in the humidity. They took us up on that option, so we went to the Citadel, back up the Cap-Blanc stairs.

The Citadel was built after the Americans invaded Québec City twice – once, in 1775, as some sort of attempt at riling up the local populace against their British colonial masters (sound familiar?), and a second time during the war of 1812. Fearing a third invasion, the British built the Citadel at the highest point in the city, with a unique layout that made it easy to defend with minimal people, even if the inner courtyard were breached. The Americans never attacked again, so now it’s just an active but small military base. The symbol of the Citadel is a white goat named Batisse, whose horns are painted gold and whose body is stuffed and kept on display after he dies and is replaced with a new Batisse. The 22nd regiment’s motto is Je me souviens or “I remember,” which incidentally is also the slogan on Quebec’s license plates.

That evening, my husband and I splurged and ate at Taniere³, who delivered a fun and inventive meal along with a non-alcoholic mocktail pairing. I always appreciate when a restaurant offers mocktails, and especially mocktail pairings with tasting menus, because I don’t really enjoy getting drunk while I eat and especially not while I’m eating a particularly expensive meal.

On the fourth day, we had a food tour booked. We’ve had some amazing food tours in Puerto Vallarta and Cabo San Lucas, so when I saw some recommendations for A Taste of History Walking Tour, I jumped on it. I would say that the food in the tour was not really the highlight – the last place we sampled had some good food, but the rest was wholly unremarkable. Getting some of the local history was a lot of fun, however. I don’t actually have a lot of photos of the food or the areas we walked around, but all of the walking was done in the old town area, except the part at the top of the hill, rather than the bottom.

Our last full day was ceded to the wishes of our youngest child, who had mostly been staying back at the Airbnb during events due to lack of interest. He was very interested in checking out the mall, however, because he had read that it had an indoor amusement park. He was right! It was a normal mall that just happened to have a small roller coaster, a ferris wheel, bumper cars, and other fun activities at the center of the food court. This is also where we finally tried Beaver Tails, a Canadian dessert that a Canadian friend of mine had been bugging us to try. They did not disappoint! The batter was vegan and they had several vegan options, but we all decided to ignore our lactose-intolerance and go for the real thing. Yes, I’m dedicating an entire slideshow to Beaver Tails. They were really good and we had them a second time the next day.

As the end to our day, we wandered around some more in the old part of the city, admiring the statues and checking out the holy door. By luck, the Holy Door of Québec City was open and we all took the opportunity to walk through it and absolve ourselves of our prior sins. This seems kind of wasted on the kids (or at least I hope it was!) but my husband and I probably got some good mileage out of the sinner reset.

Our flight back to the west coast was supposed to leave a nice, reasonable mid morning time and arrived around dinner, so naturally we woke up to the news that it had been cancelled and we had been rebooked to one that left after lunch and got into Portland at 11 p.m. Our Uber driver laughed and said that was classic Air Canada and lamented the lack of air travel competition in Canada.

I would say that a week in Québec City was plenty, though I’d happily go back. Next time, I’d choose a home base that was at the top of the tallest hill in the city, however, instead of the bottom. 😄