Day 2 - Museum of Civilization, Upper Town, Initiale
We woke up early Saturday as we had our country tour scheduled for 1pm, so we wanted to first see the Museum of Civilization that was right next door to us, as we heard it was worth a visit. Good thing to as it was raining this day and it was a good way to still see something without getting wet. We needed at least 2 hours at the museum, so we quickly got breakfast at the hotel were I finally tried the crepes.
Before we left for the hotel we wanted to make reservations for dinner tonight. There was a nice romantic restaurant that Frommers recommended and we thought we would try that. When we asked front desk to make the reservation they told us that the place was closed for reservations. We were a bit disappointed and clueless as to where else to go. The front desk recommended a few other places and we decided on this restaurant next door called Initiale. We checked their online menu from the Internet Cafe in our hotel and they had very French style food. Some weird foods I would have normally never tried and the portions were small but the appearance was superb. This was going to be an new experience for me that was for sure.
We then left for the museum and got there around 10:30am and there wasn't much of a line. Ten minutes later a line up was starting to form so it was good we got there early. The museum had a few exhibits running that included a look at the Indonesian civilization, the history of Quebec, the history of the local natives, the history of world politics and to build off the recent CSI craze, an autopsy to a murder.
This exhibit was cool as you ended up playing detective for a murder in which you then had to solve. You watched little videos that explained the crime and then listened to the suspects' reports. You got to see the crime scene and then figure what clues there were that could be used. You would learn about all the different technologies used to solve crimes, from DNA analysis to ballistic reports to the way autopsies are done. The latter was actually a bit more detailed than I thought and left some a little light headed. There were quite a few people in here so it was tough to do all the analysis yourself, but you still were able to get the gist and we were able to solve the crime. It was now approaching 12:30pm, so we quickly got our coats so we could make our 12:50pm bus pickup time outside the museum.
We got outside at 12:45pm and waited. It was pretty cold and very windy, so it was not nice to stay outside. We continued to wait as 1pm approached. Finally Aleen went quickly to our hotel to check on what was going on as they made the reservation for us yesterday. Aleen then came back and goes to me that the bus company showed up at 12:40, waited a few minutes and left because we weren't there. We stared at each other and just laughed. I thought she was joking but then I went into the hotel and sure enough the front desk person repeated what Aleen had said. We were like what were we going to do now. We went up to the room to think it over and decided that we would do our Upper Town walk today and try the country tour again tomorrow, but this time with a different tour operator. We went back downstairs and made the reservation for 1pm tomorrow.
Now that that was all settled we decided to go on another walk, but this time of Upper Town. We went back up to the Chateau and walked some more narrow streets. We stopped at the Basilique Notre-Dame, built in 1647, and admired the architecture of the church inside. Afterwards we continued along what tuned into rue Saint-Jean, which has many little shops and cafes. We looked at some souvenirs and then stopped for a quick bite to eat. We knew we wanted to make our way to Grande Allee, so we continued along Saint-Jean and just took in the sites again of the old school architecture. It seemed the street we were on was a bit of a plateau because on one side it went downhill while on the other side it went steep up
