Road trip outside of Quebec City
Trip Start
Aug 10, 2010
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Trip End
Aug 17, 2010
Ile d'Orleans, Quebec, Canada
Thursday, August 12, 2010
By 9:30 we are out on the road to Ile d'Orleans, an island 10 miles outside Quebec City. It is home to 6 small villages and we are planning to drive/see all of them.
First we go to St. Pierre and we stop by Bilodeau. Here they sell cidre de glace which is a wine made from apples after the first frost. We taste test it and buy it. We also buy some apple butter. Delicious! Next we are off to Cassis Monna et Filles. Being Polish, we love black currants. And this place makes everything out of black currants! How could we not go there?! And so we taste test all the different wines they have from black currants and purchase one. St. Pierre's last stop is it's churhc, which is the island's oldest ones dating to 1717. It is quite petite and it has a tiny cemetery in the back.
Next village is Ste Petronille. There we first stop by Chocolaterie de Ile d'Orleans at which I successfully order an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate. It is amazing but even the petite size is too large for one person. So we split it. It is also a very pleasant area to just sit around and relax. After a while, we go to La Goeliche, an inn right on the water. We just go for the view. There, we learn that the island dates to 1648.
Next village is St. Laurent, but we don't see anything we like so we just observe as we drive through it. The fourth village is St. Jean. It is a very cute village with one beautiful house called Manoir Mauvide-Genest, which belonged to a French surgeon in the 1700s.
During our drive to the fifth village, St. Francois, we stop by a random fruit stand outside and buy some strawberries. St. Francois has an observation tower, which we climbed. The reward was a beautiful view of the Laurentian Mountains and Mont Ste-Anne.
The last village is Ste-Famille. There we find Les Fromages. It is a cheese shop that is known for its cheese Paillasson. We stand in line to buy Paillasson. But some lady warns us that this is a cheese you must cook! Ahh good thing she warned us. So instead we buy a sandwich that has it inside, so that we can taste what the craze is about. And I must say it is absolutely delicious!!
After a few hours on the island, we are off to Ste Anne de Beaupre. The drive is not very long but when we reach it, we know we reached it. You cannot miss it. It is a HUGE basilica. I think it may be larger than Notre Dame in Paris. And it is all just breathtaking. Inside you can see canes from people who have been healed after their visit there. We spend about an hour or so there. Gorgeous.
We continue more north to Canyon Ste-Anne. It is a park that houses a beautiful waterfall. As we walk through the park, we can hear the thunder of the falls, but cannot see them, until we turn a corner. We see a bridge. We cross it, but here the falls are just barely starting. We continue walking and the thunder gets louder. Very soon we see what it's all about. It's such a beautiful waterfall! Another bridge is a swinging bridge. I am brave enough to get on but my mom is not. You get a great view here too. We go to the other side of the falls via the other bridge and move on down, closer to the falls. Here you can feel the mist of them. And we are the only ones in the park, as it is close to closing time. But what a beautiful time it was.
Next thing we know, it's 6 pm. We drive around the area for a bit more. We see Mont St. Anne up close and it's beautiful. We get back into the city at around 8:30 and finish off with dinner.
