At the top and a bit to the east to the Chateau is Place d'Armes. A nice park with a stonewall on the top of the cliff which overlooks the St. Lawrence again and also gives a nice steep view down to the Lower Town. Canons line the park as if they were still being used to protect the walled-city. Of course it was a nice photo op and we took advantage of that.
We continued over to the Chateau and walked along the Terrasse Dufferin, which is just a long cemented area with benches, were you can relax and watch the ships on the St. Lawrence again. It was very crowded and we couldn't find a bench so we proceeded into the Chateau.
The Chateau by the way is a hotel now owned by Fairmont, the same company that owns the Royal York in Toronto. Once inside, it was clear the similarities. Very fancy, elegant and old school compared to our hotel. Secondly, it is massive and its lobby is super busy. In a way I was happy that ours was much more private. There are quite a few boutiques and bistros and such located on site, where you can buy anything you want, but for a price of course! The have a SAQ Signature store where you can by selected wines and champagnes...some going for $1000 a bottle!
After the Chateau we needed a bite to eat. Technically, we were now in Upper Town, which we wanted to save for another day, but we decided to walk just a little bit further along the streets to see if we could find something. It was a little tough to find some simple food. First off, franchised restaurants inside the walled-city are hard to come by. There is a McDonalds but it has no big golden arches and its decor fits the old school traditional style of the buildings in the area. We finally decided on this crepe place but didn't actually have crepes.
Afterwards, we need to find some alcohol for the room so we decided to find the SAQ in the port. We went back to Lower Town and then walked up along the port. Pretty much the same thing, cobblestone and stone buildings and a lot of cafes. As we were just about to give up, we saw the SAQ and got our goods for the weekend. Since it was also now cafe time, we stopped off for a little coffee and cake, well for me a mixed drink. Afterwards we went back to the hotel to relax our feet after all that walking.
Since we had eaten so late we were not super hungry, so we chilled in the room with our champagne and beers and just relaxed. Around 10pm or so we went down to the bar to enjoy the atmosphere there. There were only a few people there, so we grabbed a table and ordered a drink. We also saw they had food so we shared a macaroni and cheese. Wow, was that outstanding. It came with mushrooms and the sauce was to die for. We were so happy about that decision. We spent some time by the fireplace before finally calling it a day and headed up to our room for the night.
