July 25, 2014 (95th Day)

We realized that it was not going to be a perfect day to explore Quebec City because of the weather.  However, we left the campground at 8 am, hoping to find a parking spot in Quebec City and we did.  Then we realized we did not have enough Canadian coins to pay the meter. Erwin had to walk over to some shops nearby hoping to exchange Canadian dollars for coins.  Some stores would not exchange.  One storekeeper suggested that we go to a gas station nearby and we walked over there.  Got coins then walked back to the metered parking. All instructions were in French! We missed the key wording which said it was $12 for 12 hours from 8 pm to 8 am, we walked away and thought about it a bit, returned to the meters and asked passerbys if they spoke English and finally found one, he  corrected our thinking and said what we had already paid was not and will not allow us to stay without getting a ticket or towed. We had to fork over another $18 bucks to correct the situation! Ouch, $30 bucks for parking for a day! We made sure that we made use of it that day!  Lesson learned??   Probably not unless we wanted to learn French!
 

There were 3 H's in Quebec City: HOT, HAZY & HUMID!

Unusual sculpture which includes Edith!

More colorful sculptures

Woodcarving in progress

Beautifully carved piece

Mural on the side of a building

Breakneck Steps (L'Escalier Casse-Cou)

336 Steps that connects between the lower and upper parts of the city.  

A good workout for us!  There were lots of people using the steps for exercise, some of them passed us several times going up and down running! There was one elderly lady (in excellent fit shape) who talked to us each time she passed us, stating this was her 3rd, 4th, 5th time and was going to do one more when we arrived at the top! Wow, a glutton for punishment or just Gung Ho on exercise!

Artichoke and Pepperoni Pizza for our lunch

Pool noodles used as an amazing looking  sculpture, hard to count how many were used!

The dog taking a dip in the splash park (we told you it was hot and humid)

We could not continue exploring the city because of heat and humidity, so we left in the mid afternoon.  We drove east from the city crossing Ile d'Orleans Bridge (Route 368) to the island called Ile d'Orleans. The island is about 3 miles east of Quebec city, is populated mostly by French Canadians.  To circle around the island it will be 47 miles. We were planning on finding a park to leave the van and ride the bikes for few miles, but when we got on the island we found out that there was no bike lane at all. The roads were narrow and most of the way there were no shoulders to ride on and no room if two cars met for the cyclist.  We did not go biking at all, kept on driving around the island making a couple stops along the way. One place we stopped at was to look around and buy chocolates.  There was nothing to see on the island that Edith was ready to get off the island, but we had like 30 more miles before we could get off.  We would not highly recommend anyone to visit the island, but if you want to go for a leisurely ride then it is okay.

When we saw the bridge over there we were so glad because we thought we would never leave the island alive.  After crossing we arrived Quebec City then took backroads to go see Montmorency Falls. Edith visited it back in 1978, said the falls was very beautiful.  However, she was surprised to see a lot of changes there.  There was no admission to the falls back in 1978 and now they are charging $11 just to go in and park the vehicle.  We both decided to wait until tomorrow morning to go back and decide if we are going to visit the falls or not.

We went back to the same campground we stayed at the night before. After supper we went out for a hike.  It was still humid!