We got up pretty early on Mardi morning, checked out of the hotel, got coffee at Tim Hortons in the Metro station, and then got on the road to Quebec City.

I wanted to take Route 40 through Trois-Rivieres because it followed along the north side of the St Lawrence, and I figured it’d be more scenic, if slightly slower. (It wasn’t, really.) There was very little traffic along the way, which was a good thing since there was road work (traveaux) EVERYWHERE. We learned to curse the traveaux just like at home.

We were hoping to make it out of Canada before needing gas, because as far as we could tell by the strange per-liter pricing, gas was super-expensive there. It was nice to have a 50mpg car, too, but that meant the tank was tiny. We pulled off in a town called Batiscan (which we named “body scan”) because they had a Shell sign on the highway, and then learned we had to drive into town. At least it wasn’t too far, and the town was apparently built in the 1640s. Holy crap.

We got gas ($50 Canadian for our tiny tank!), used the restroom, bought pop, snacks (tout garnie chips are the best!), and local beer. They had a really impressive selection of local stuff there, and we were pretty excited to have a beer called “Shawinigan Handshake“.

When I got back behind the wheel and turned the key, nothing happened. The car made an electric sound and did nothing. I tried again, and then again and again. I tried, the gas, the brake, the emergency brake, and nothing worked. The car wouldn’t start.

After a few minutes of panic about being stranded in a tiny Quebecois town, I decided to Google the problem. The first post that came up said that Priuses have a regularly-occurring issue with the steering wheel lock. Suddenly I remembered my really old cars having the same issue. I turned the steering wheel roughly back and forth, and then it started. WHEW.

We got back on the road and arrived at the outskirts of Quebec City around 2pm. It was an impressive view driving into town and seeing the old city up on top of the hill. I was really excited to see it, because it’s known for looking so European.

We managed to get to our hotel only getting lost once, which was miraculous considering the very-European streets. We got there via the Grand Allee, passing through the city gates. It was as gorgeous as expected.

We were staying at the Hotel Chateau Bellevue, which faced a park bordered by the famous Chateau Frontenac on the north, and the Terrasse Dufferin on the East. They only had valet parking, so we left the car out front and checked in. The guy at the front desk was very friendly, and the valet charge of $19/night was shockingly low for the location. Though we were there before checkin, they got us a room on the second floor (overlooking the parking lot, unfortunately – St Lawrence views don’t come cheap, I’m guessing). It was exactly the kind of room you’d hope for in a historic building.

We headed out to see Vieux Quebec. Crossing the park takes you to a set of stairs that goes down to the Terrasse Dufferin (the boardwalk-like walkway that goes along the edge of the Haute-ville, overlooking the St Lawrence River. From the edge, you look down on the Basse-ville.

There were cannons everywhere. Since we have a huge collection of photos of Bally hanging in cannons (i.e. Cannonbally!), we were in hysterics over the massive quantity of them sitting there. No, we didn’t put him in every single one. Just many of them.

The Chateau Frontenac is ENORMOUS. It’s a Fairmont hotel now, and has over 600 rooms.

It towers over the city. And yes, that’s a Starbucks at the bottom.

Here’s the view of the Basse-ville from the terrace. If you’re a sucker you climb down there, but those of us in the know take the funicular, obviously.

I got a text from my mom saying they were arriving in Quebec City, and wondered where we should meet. Since we were right by the most easy-to-find landmark in the city, we decided to meet near the Chateau Frontenac.

We figured it would take them a while, so we decided to walk up to see the Citadel. We headed toward the funicular that went up the hill, and realized as we got there that it was long out of service. We headed up the stairs instead.

A million steps later, we had to rest at the top. My mom said they were getting near, but after climbing up that high there was no way we were going to walk back down right away. It was also much warmer than expected, so we were totally sweaty and overdressed for the weather.

Most of the grounds of the Citadel were barricaded, so we had to circle the entire thing and then climb down a hill to find the entrance. Once there, we were told you can only go on an organized tour (it’s still in active use! We had no idea.), unless you want to go into the small courtyard and look around. Since my parents were waiting, we decided to do that. We checked out the shop quickly, too.

I love Quebec’s motto: je me souviens. We took it as a threat, since it’s way funnier that way.

My mom said they were waiting by the Frontenac, so we headed back that direction. We’d apparently gone a long way, because it took a while to get back. We walked through Vieux Quebec and found them waiting on a corner, worried about their meter running out.

They asked if we wanted to take a drive to see some of the stuff that wasn’t walking distance, and we said yes. (They had been to QC a couple times already, so they knew all the tourist stops.)

We drove out of the city gate again and headed into the park surrounding the Plains of Abraham. The area is gigantic, with a series of parks, trails, historic sites, and scenic overlooks.

And cannons. ALL the cannons.

We drove around some more looking at historic houses and awesome little neighborhoods, and then headed back into Vieux Quebec. I really love any city that has a wall around it.

Then we headed down to the Basse-ville, the oldest part of the city down on the river. The road heading down there is super-steep, which is why when you’re walking the funicular is the way to go. (Plus you know my love of funiculars.)

We found parking in a lot by the river and walked into town (just a couple of blocks). We found this gigantic mural on the side of a building, in a plaza commemorating the old part of Quebec City being a Unesco World Heritage site.

Photos can’t really do the town justice. It’s really incredibly attractive.

My dad was clearly ready for dinner – he walked around looking at menus while we  looked at historic sites. He found an Italian place on this plaza that had an English menu, friendly hosts, and an outdoor patio (at our request), so we decided we’d go there after we were done wandering.

My one recommendation for what not to see in Vieux Quebec is the public restrooms. They’re mixed-gender and totally disgusting.

Check out the funicular!!

After walking around for a while and seeing some shops, it was time for dinner. My aunt and uncle were somewhere in QC, but we didn’t exactly know where. It sounded like they wanted to come with us, but we weren’t exactly sure. We got a table and ordered drinks while we waited.

Eventually we were dying of hunger and tired of waiting for them, so we ordered. We had another beer, and the food came out fairly quickly. By the time they arrived, though, I think the kitchen staff had quit or something. Service ground to a halt, nobody had anything coming to their tables, and the two servers looked like they wanted to cry.

My parents told us to not bother waiting, since we were done eating and had just arrived in town. We were more than happy to be let off the hook.

We walked around the area a while longer and then decided to go up to the Hotel Chateau Frontenac. The funicular was waiting to take us there.

It’s $2.50/person to ride the thing. Worth it.

Here’s the view going up the hill.

The Chateau Frontenac is even prettier at night.

We’d read that the Frontenac had a couple of really good bars, so we decided to check them out. The inside of the building was as opulent as expected, and the bar at the far end was really attractive except for the animal-based furniture.

(It had a hunting-lodge theme, so I guess it’s forgivable.)

Their cocktail menu was impressive, and though the prices were pretty steep, they were nowhere near what we expected. (Nothing like the 30-euro cocktail we had in Paris.) They were really innovative, too: Matt had a mix-your-own Negroni, and I had a gin drink that had an ice-shell cup holding powdered berries. (The drinks were apparently specialties from the SAM bar next door, which was more known for their craft cocktails.)

After a couple drinks there, we decided to check out another bar in town. We’d see a bunch of stuff along the Grand Allee when we’d driven in earlier, so we decided to walk up that direction and see what was there.

It ended up being a lot farther than we thought, and the entire route was up a gradual hill. We hadn’t really recovered from all the walking in Montreal, so we were both a little crabby about it.

Once you got past the Hotel du Parliament building, the street was lined with restaurants. Everything had a sizable patio, and the vibe was way more South Beach than we’d have liked. We saw a beer bar called Les Trois Brasseurs, so we headed in there. It was a huge cavernous place that was mostly empty inside, since everyone was out on the patio. As we walked in, though, we felt a couple raindrops, and felt that inside was probably the place to be.

We found a spot at the bar and ordered a sampler of their beers. The Coupe Memorial and the Rangers-Lightning Stanley Cup game were on TV, so we were happy. Ten minutes later, the sky opened up and it started pouring outside. Suddenly the patio was empty, and the huge bar was very full.

There had been nothing in the weather report that even mentioned rain, so we figured it would pass quickly. It kept going, though, so we ordered another round and waited. The bar had last call at 11:15, so when we noticed that the rain had mostly stopped, we got our check and headed back toward the hotel. It was about a half-mile walk downhill from there.

Within a block, it started raining again. Then it started pouring. I was really glad I had a purse made of vinyl, because we were absolutely soaked. I was wearing flipflops that became really slippery, and walking downhill didn’t help. When we got to the city gate, we huddled under it for a while just to get out of the rain and wring out our clothes.

We walked into the hotel lobby, dripping all over the place. Sorry, Hotel Chateau Bellevue. Back in our room, we had a beer in bed and watched a weird Quebecois call-in game show involving unscrambling the names of places in Quebec. The man hosting it was so annoying that I had to take his picture and keep it forever.

The same rain was threatening on the morning of Mercredi, but we hoped it would hold off long enough for us to go on a boat tour. The Louis Jolliet was the same boat we’d seen from Dufferin Terrace, and we were really excited to go on it. I put on a tshirt, left the hotel, and went back inside to change to a hoodie. It was a lot colder than the previous day. We picked up coffee and rode the funicular down to the river.

We bought tickets ($80CA) for the 11:30 cruise and boarded. A very friendly guy dressed as Louis Jolliet greeted us, and we climbed up to the top deck to hang out while we waited to depart. It was gorgeous outside, and the boat, which had a capacity of 1,000, wasn’t very full at all.

The view of Quebec City from the river is spectacular. The Chateau Frontenac towers over everything.

We got underway, and Louis Jolliet started narrating, going back and forth between French and English with impressive skill. We passed the industrial part of the city in the old harbor, and then the huge shipbuilding plant on the south side of the St Lawrence.

(Fun fact: at this point it’s just the St Lawrence River; the seaway portion goes from near Montreal to the Great Lakes.)

The boat took us up as far as Montmorency Falls, which my parents happened to coincidentally be visiting via car. The falls are 1.5 times the height of Niagara, though it’s hard to tell that from the boat.

We passed under this bridge, did a loop, and headed back, passing Ile de Orleans. At that point it was getting really overcast again, and the blue skies were gone.

Louis Jolliet did a trivia contest where someone won a glass of local maple syrup whiskey called Coureur des Bois (‘runner of the woods’), and encouraged us all to go try it. So we did.

We took our drinks out to the pimp seats on the deck. The boat was obviously used for a lot of weddings.

The view coming back into Quebec City wasn’t quite as nice with the sky, but still. Pretty impressive.

We passed the dock and went to see the Plains of Abraham and the Citadel. The river got rapidly more industrial in that direction. Then we turned around and headed back.

As the boat pulled up to the dock, the rain started. We were really glad we’d taken the morning trip, because we’d been pretty lucky with the weather. We got off and walked into the Basse-Ville in search of lunch.

We walked around looking at menus, and as expected, being vegetarian was a challenge. We finally decided on a place called Côtes-à-Côtes Resto Grill. I was a little nervous about it being overly-touristy since it was right there on the river, but the menu was actually really good.

The rain had stopped again, so we asked for a table on the patio. There was another couple sitting out there, and we both had tables under large umbrellas in case it rained again. We ordered local beers (Le Cheval Blanc) and a cheve rillette with eggplant caviar and enjoyed the scenery. Oh, and the building dated from 1683. Crazy.

Right as our entrees arrived, it started raining again. For a while we were protected, and then the rain started increasing. We moved indoors and finished our meal.

We took the funicular back up the hill and went to go do more wandering in Vieux Quebec.

(I love the strange typeface on that building. It’s on the plaza facing Chateau Frontenac.)

Matt had a restaurant in mind in St Roch (what we thought of as the hipster part of Quebec), so we headed that direction. It was raining pretty steadily, which was kind of annoying for our wandering, mostly for photo-taking purposes.) We stopped into a few shops along the way to pick up souvenirs. The humidity was ridiculous, so we appreciated the air conditioning when we stopped.

We climbed down the hill from the Haute-Ville and saw the Gare du Palais near the river. We’re both huge train station nerds, so we had to go inside. (Plus they had nice bathrooms.) It was a good break from the rain, too.

From there we walked into St Roche Faubourg, and found La Korrigane. It was a quiet little place in what became a busy part of town, since it was nearing post-work hours and next to a busy bus stop. We sat there and watched Quebec City do its thing. In the meantime, the weather went from raining to clear and sunny. And HOT.

After a couple beers, we decided to head back up toward Vieux Quebec. We had fancy dinner plans and wanted to clean up a bit before we went over there.

We knew we’d come a very long way and that it had all been downhill, so we were ready for the fact that we’d be climbing. But holy crap, the hills in the heat and full sun – it was ridiculous. We got to a huge spiraling set of stairs and had to decide if it was better to keep climbing hills for blocks on end (on the ‘highway’ that had brought us into town) or take the stairs. We opted for the stairs, and took a recovery break at the top.

We wanted to pick up some liquor-based souvenirs to take home with us, so we looked up a liquor store nearby and went over there. It was called SAQ, and we liked that we ended up with a reusable liquor store back that said SAQ all over it. It’s Matt’s preferred mode of booze-transportation to this day.

The views were much improved from the rainy afternoon. We passed through the plaza with the Palais Montcalm and through the city gate.

Matt stopped into a nearby sports shop to by a Quebec Remparts tshirt. He’d watched enough local hockey to be a fan. (And their logo is awesome.)

We made it back to our hotel and had to shower, we were so sweaty. We hung out in the air conditioning and had a beer and an espresso from the lobby machine. (I loved that machine.) Then we changed and headed back down one of the many hills to dinner at Chez Boulay around 8pm. On the way there we ended up behind a group of young men we instantly realized were hockey players – plus Matt recognized one of them from TV – and were way too excited about it. One of the players asked the younger kids tagging along if they wanted to go get gelato, so they instantly became my favorite team. We later learned that they were the Oshawa Generals, who went on to win the Coupe Memorial.

At Chez Boulay, we were seated right away at the bar, and ordered fancy cocktails. Mine arrived with a gooseberry.

Our meal was as incredible as expected, and the service was very good. I had a beet salad, and gnocchi with local cheese. Matt had Arctic char carpacchio with cattail and milkweed pods, and bison cheek (which was the cheek of the day. Really). I liked that while the restaurant had really high-end food, it wasn’t overly pretentious, nor were the people there. It was a mix of locals and tourists.

After dinner, we decided to go back to the Hotel Chateau Frontenac to have a drink in the other recommended bar there. I stopped into the gift shop and overpaid like crazy for souvenirs (they were worth it), and then we headed to Bistro Le Sam. Its entrance is right next to the main hotel bar, but it’s very open and modern, not at all like the old-guy hunting lodge next door. Our bartender greeted us and gave us menus, and we noticed that most of the signature drinks from next door were on there, in addition to others.

We got talking to him about the local gin called Ungava, because its distinct feature is that it’s bright yellow. He had us sample that and another local gin, and then offered to mix drinks with them. Matt ended up with a Negroni, quite possible his favorite cocktail on earth after the Manhattan, and that led to a very long discussion about how Quebec bartenders had participated in Negroni week. Jean-Felix, our bartender, said he’d taken notes on all the variations and wanted to make them.

So it was time for mini-Negroni week at the Fairmont Hotel Chateau Frontenac. (Here’s Jean-Felix’s post he said he’d write with the cocktail details afterwards.) We met some celebrating locals and talked to them for a bit, and then it was time to go. We really wanted to hang out there all night, but we had a long drive to America ahead of us.

Sadly, it was time to leave Quebec. We got up early on Jeudi, asked at the front desk for the car, and walked over to Starbucks for coffee and a scone for the road. The car was waiting when we got back.

We got on the highway out of QC and took a huge bridge over the St Lawrence. The speed limits were much slower than we would have liked. We passed through a long series of small Quebecois towns with moose crossing signs everywhere.

We reached the middle-of-nowhere border at CA173/US201 around 11:30. The only other person there was a lady on foot, which was incredibly perplexing since as far as we knew, there was nothing around for miles. The border agent looked in the car, but we didn’t have to pull over for the full inspection like we had entering Canada. USA!

We crossed into Maine and continued on through dense forest and hilly terrain. The first town was Jackman, so we stopped there to use the bathroom and get beverages. It looked like a northern-Wisconsin stop, all camo and gun supplies.

Eventually we met up with the Kennebec River, so at least we had something to look at.

FINALLY, we reached I-95. We stopped again right before getting on the freeway, and noticed some pretty sizeable storm clouds looming. Right around Augusta it started raining, then pouring, then something beyond pouring I haven’t really seen before. Visibility dropped to nothing on the interstate, and everyone pulled over to sit on the side of the road. I was worried it would hail and our tiny car would be pummeled to bits.

We sat there for about ten minutes, and then it let up. Everyone got back on the road again, and by the time we reached our exit at Freeport, it was sunny again (though the clouds were still hanging out behind us, waiting.)

Our first order of business in Maine was getting Matt a lobster roll. I’d spent some of the drive Googling to find out who had the best lobster roll in Freeport, and consensus was Harraseeket Lunch and Lobster, on the marina in South Freeport.

The place was exactly what we wanted out of the Maine coast. I was thrilled they actually had some vegetarian options, too. A veggie burger isn’t exciting, but it’s something.

Matt ordered a lobster roll, and we shared a massive order of onion rings. The view was pretty good, too:

(This ended up being only the second-best lobster roll he had in Maine.)

By the time we finished eating, it was clear that the storm was coming our way. We decided to take shelter at Maine Beer Company.

They had a nice little taproom (which was quite new), and I was impressed with their commitment to being totally green. There were solar panels all over outside. The beers were awesome, too.

It started pouring, so we waited out the storm there. A guy came in with a guitar and started playing Bob Marley songs, so we considered living there. But we had farther to go, so we took a couple bottles to go, and got back on the road to Portland. It was rush hour time, so we ended up sitting in traffic on one of the many bridges in town. But since it’s a small town it wasn’t too bad, and we reached our hotel near the airport around 6pm. (It would have been easier to stay in downtown, but I wanted to be able to get back on the road early the next morning.)

After checking in, we got back in the car and headed downtown. We parked in a very expensive ramp, since street parking was nuts, and walked over to the Hunt & Alpine Club to have a pre-dinner cocktail. It was one of those stereotypical uber-hipster bars, but their drinks were really good, the staff was friendly, and they service Scandinavian food so we felt right at home.

Then it was time for the dinner reservation we’d made weeks in advance for Grace. It’s a restaurant in an old church in Portland.

We had a table on the rail overlooking the central bar and kitchen, and there was a huge church window behind us (and another bar). The host stand was a lector, and there were pews along the outside walls. The kitchen was up where the pulpit used to be. It was spectacular.

As was the food – we had mushroom and chevre ravioli as an appetizer, and my entree was marinated tempeh. Matt had pan-seared wahoo, farotto, and charred spring onions.

After dinner, we walked down to the port. It took us a while to get there even though it was a few blocks, because the lights NEVER changed for pedestrians to cross the large road along the port. It was really weird. We finally jaywalked and went into Liquid Riot, which was a combination brewery/distillery (called Infiniti). The crowd was very bro-ey.

One of their specialties was beer schnapps, so we sampled that and their white whiskey. We decided on beer rather than cocktails. They had a really excellent sour that I liked a lot.

Then it was time to go, so we paid our $21 parking fee (what the hell, Portland?) and went back to the hotel.