Day 14 - Quebec City

After waking up and going through the morning routine, it was time to head into Quebec City for some sightseeing. Fortunately, it was a beautiful morning, so I was looking forward to walking around the “old city” of Quebec, or Vieux Quebec.

It was about a 10-15 minute drive from the campground to where I needed to go. The road followed the shoreline of the St. Lawrence River, and there was a nice park and bike trail that ran alongside the road. As I got closer to the “city”, I started to think about where I would park. I drove around for a while, and didn't really see any “good” options. Then it occurred to me, why don't I park in one of the parking lots in the riverside park I had been driving past, and then I could ride my bike back to where I wanted to be. This seemed like a pretty good idea, so that's what I did. It worked out great. I parked the car and then road about a mile and a half on the bike trail back to the heart of the “lower town” of the old city of Quebec. I locked my bike up in front of a museum, figuring that would be a pretty safe place, and then started exploring on foot.

From what I had read, the Quebec City is the only existing walled city north of Mexico. It's a very pretty area, with mostly old buildings, many of which I'm sure have been refurbished, but it still has a very old look and feel to it. The Chateau (Hotel) Frontenac is located here and it's a beautiful buliding, though unfortunately, they were doing a lot of work on the exterior so there was a lot of scaffolding and such covering it up.

There were lots of shops and cafes and the area definitely had a lot of “old world” charm to it. There's also a fort within the old city, though I didn't bother to go into the fort. I walked around for a few hours, but then some clouds started to move in and I decided I would get on the road again. I made my way back to the car and started driving towards Montreal. At this point, I decided that I wasn't going to go to Montreal, and that I would just head to Lake Placid today, one day earlier than originally planned.

There was a lot of traffic on the road, but at least this was a “real” highway. As I got closer to Montreal, I had to exit the highway I was on to connect with a different road. Traffic was now crawling, and it took almost an hour to go 14 miles!!! I was now on highway 15, heading south, which would connect with interstate 87, once I crossed the border back into the United States.

It took about half an hour to get through the customs and immigration station at the border, and I was finally on my way once again. I arrived in Lake Placid at around 6:00 pm. The journey was over!!!