Last night I went down to lower city for some more exploration, this time by night.
As it turns out, we visited Quebec (purely by chance) during ‘The Festival Of New France’ and the city (especially lower town) was full of people in period costume, such as this:
And this:
There was a particularly large density of them in lower city last night, including some actors playing roles. This next shot shows a fishmonger pulling has cart into the darkness:
And here’s a bear!
The fireworks were lengthy and spectacular. Everyone in Quebec turned out to watch them 🙂
The next day, our last in Quebec, started with a visit to The Citadel.
This fort atop the highest peak in the city was built by the British to defend Quebec from the Americans. It was never actually attacked, and although an active base is now open for tours.
Although a bit rushed (due to tourist volume I suspect) our guide Claudine did a good job and we learned a lot. But were I to distill the experience to one image it would be this:
Holy Moses a goat in armor! This is (a statue of) Batisse the mascot of the regiment posted at The Citadel. The first Batisse was a gift from The Queen and the bloodline continues to today’s goat, who takes part in the changing of the guard every day! Batisse is a high level goat!
Here’s Jim eating poutine for lunch:
Can you guess from the photo what I had?
We did some other stuff, such as visiting churches and a nunnery and even the birds again…
…and then I saw the worst bear souvenir ever made…
…before we hopped on the train back to Montreal! Tomorrow back to Albany and a much needed vacation to recover 🙂