Quebec City, Montreal, Parc National de la Mauricie

Onward we went to the province of Quebec!  You will know the second you cross the Province line because ALL of the signs turn to exclusively French.  I still am not entirely sure why, since Canada is still part of the English empire and the rest of the country is bilingual but somehow/some way the province of Quebec has enough influence to do what they like.  ;) 

We started out our exploration by going to the national park called Parc National de la Mauricie.  It is a park that has 150 lakes.  People load up their canoes or kayaks with food, tents, sleeping bags, etc...and head off onto the lake for a camping trip of a lifetime.  I told Gary that it is a combination of car camping and backpacking since you can take more but you're still limited on space for what you can take.  After watching lots of people do this, we vowed to go back to the park on a day that had better weather to at least get on some of the lakes in one of the many canoes that the park has for rent. 

 Hearing so much about Montreal made us excited to head into the city the next day.  Old town Montreal is amazing!  It feels a lot like parts of Europe and has a lot of history.  We toured the underground museum that showcases Montreal in 1600's.  We saw where it started being built and why.  It was exclusively founded to bring the Catholic Church to the natives by a very small group of people from France.  Since it rained the entire day (surprise!) we walked all over old town where we saw their Notre Dame and then we headed to the university section that features beautiful houses around a popular square.  We then drove into downtown where there was a church said to be modeled after St. Peter's Square in Rome.  It is a beautiful church named St. Mary, Queen of the World.  It has statues on the roof line just like St. Peter's in Rome and the church itself is quite beautiful and modeled after the church in Rome. 

After seeing Montreal we were excited to see Quebec City.  Our drive into the city was absolutely beautiful since it took us right along the river.  After a short distance we saw old city where fur trading first started.  It is a town that is 2 levels and you can take a funnicular from one level to the other.  Back in the day it was separated into high town and low town.  High town is made of the Citadel and the wall that still stands today (and the only town in North America that is still enclosed entirely by a wall). Also in the upper part is now the Parliament building.  We enjoyed Quebec City more, we found it be smaller, less busy and to remind us even more of Europe.  They have 2 Notre Dame churches there.  After walking around both levels of the town, we headed about 20 miles northeast along the St. Lawrence river to a  little town that has the most amazing basilica named Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre.  It was absolutely amazing and beyond words to describe the beauty and grandeur.  Definitely worth a visit!

Remembering our promise to ride the canoe and explore the lakes of Parc National de la Mauricie, we chose to go back on our last day since the weather was cooperating.  We rented a canoe for a couple of hours and set off on the lake to see if we could find one of their many camping sites to have a picnic.  After paddling for about a half hour, we found a beautiful, elevated site to explore.  These sites have a flat place to set up your tent, a fire pit for night time fires (they provide the fire wood on the site), a picnic table for meals and even a little outhouse.  It would be a lot of fun to try this some day!  :)  After a little bit of exploring we decided to head back but we were dreading having to row into the wind.  We surprised ourselves at how well we did!  No falling in and we made it back in no time!  :)  Hope we make it back to this whole area (despite the language barrier) some day!