August 6, 2025 – Quebec City, CA – Sunny – 78F

August 6, 2025 – Quebec City

Beautiful day in Quebec City.  

Another nice breakfast (the standard) and a nice view.  I’m guessing cottage cheese is now restocked (must have gotten some “emergency” cottage cheese in Saguenay – now, that’s customer service).

Later on, the ship has put together an Azamazing Evening Event in Quebec City but our plan today was to take the ship provided shuttle bus to the Upper City and take in the sites (we did not see them on the tour we took on Cruise #1).  We disembarked around 10 AM and walked up the serpentine ship-way and then through the Terminal and to the front, where the busses were coming and going.  There were two different shuttles – one went to the Chateau Frontenac and the other went to the “Drawbridge”, which went to the lower city (the Administrative Part).  We took the first shuttle and it was just a short circuitous ride that let us off basically in front of the Chateau and the Place D’Armes. 

There is a Starbucks on the ground floor of the Chateau - I went in looking for facilities but they had none.  You can actually enter the Chateau from the interior of the Starbucks.

We started off on the Dufferin Terrace, built in 1879 and named after the Governor General of Canada at the time, and stretching from the Chateau to the Citadel (too far for us to walk).  The terrace also provides nice views of the St Lawrence River.

When we got there, there were acrobats performing near the statue of Samuel Champlain, the founder of Quebec City.  

The act drew a pretty nice crowd.  We watched them for a little while and then walked across the street to the Place D’Armes.

Place D’Armes became a park in 1865 after the construction of the Citadel in the 1830s.  For us, the park, which would use a little love and a good gardener, provided a lot of benches (some in the shade) where you could just sit and people watch.  You could also see when the shuttle busses arrived across the street. 

We found an interesting statue, "Be Welcoming" in the Place.  The statue was created in 2019 by Canadian scultor Timothy Schmalz.  From the back, the statue looks like a pilgrim or stranger carrying a bag over his shoulder; when you move to the front of the piece, it become an angel with an unfolded wing.  There a several replicas of this statue - there is one in Chicago (not sure where) and in St. Peter's Square in the Vatican.

Le Monument de la Foi (Monument to Faith), 

located in the center of the park, was dedicated in 1915 to commemorate the three hundredth anniversary of the Recollects, missionaries who accompanied Samuel Champlain and established the first religious group in 1615,

Dinner was in Discoveries because they offered gazpacho (a fave of mine) along with the standard salmon.  Also good was the appetizer, crispy fried portobello mushrooms. 

Dispatching of busses began at 6:15 PM by Deck number starting from the upper decks. We got nice seats on both the bus and Armory (end seats).

The event was held at the Voltigeurs de Quebec Armory.  The armory was damaged by a fire in 2008.  The museum was also burned but 90 percent of the artifacts in the museum were saved by firefighters and soldiers. The Armory was rebuilt in 2018. 

World Renowned Composer and Pianist – Steve Barakatt – was in concert , performing “The Soul of Quebec City”.  Steve Barakatt is a Lebanese-Canadian who has been composing and performing for over 30 years.  He has sold over 5 Million albums and happens to be married to Olympic Gymnast – Elena Grosheva.  They are both Canadian UNICEF Ambassadors.  The concert had great acoustics and visuals which enhanced the six songs beautifully played by M. Barakatt.  He shared the background on the songs which was also interesting.  The only questionable choice was the use of underwater scenes (which looked violent) to accompany his latest composition.

The concert lasted about a hour and then some people headed for the doors even though Martin was going to dismiss people by bus number (we were number 9).  As the people were leaving, Barakatt added an encore number to the show (not sure Martin was aware that he was going to do that) and so people - including Martin - watched from the doors.  Then it was off to the busses.  It was a little chaotic -as it always is - but everyone got back to the ship.

The moon provided an amazing view of Quebec City at night.

We checked out the post show snacks up in the Living Room but we were more tired than hungry.

It was a long day and we headed for our stateroom.