Pièce de résistance

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Day one in Quebec City was once again doing the tourist thing, shopping, hiking ( not walking as the terrain is often 30 degree inclines or more) and taking in the sights of old Quebec.  Chores that we have do though include finding a car rental for tomorrow's planned excursion, and finding a post office to send Doug's completed charts home( now weighing 12 kg) and to send Andrew's belongings home that he is not using 'cause he packed way too much and he is tired of moving them around every night! This box ended up being 15 kilos! In our travels, we found a nice Irish pub, we visited the Chateau Frontenac, walked along the old wall of Quebec near la Citadelle de Quebec and the Plains of Abraham and enjoyed all the street entertainment. We are not sure if the people of Quebec are really big sinners or just really holy as there seems to be a cathedral on every other corner..... As the day wore on we found ourselves once again pressed for time and there is just so much to do.  We made it to the post office 5 minutes before closing and then ended up walking back to the boat to get a change of cloths for dinner. Apparently the weather here has not been the best as we find out first hand as another sun shower ensues.  For dinner we found a little hole in the wall cafe 70's style with red bar stools.  The food was very reasonably priced and served the best meat pie, baked beans and French Canadian pea soup.  This place was obviously a local favourite.  It was really neat sitting in the diner in old Quebec on another fireworks night listening to the cannon fire in the background. If one had a vivid imagination, this was the place to be!

This brings us up to current day, our last day in Quebec City. We picked the car up at the Delta hotel at 10 am and off we go - first another Church - this one though is in Ste Anne-De-Beaupre (30 km outside of the city) and the site is now a dedicated shrine to Ste Anne.  This was in the "top ten things to see in Quebec" of which we will knock of four of them by day's end..  Next we went further down the highway to Canyon Ste Anne.  This canyon has three suspension bridges and trails around a gorge overlooking enormous waterfalls. Rather than ziplining, they rock climb the gorge tethered to cables - not for the faint of heart! The pictures don't do it justice!   After hiking the canyon circuit, we continued on our excellent excursion to the Ile d' Orleans. It is quite an impressive bridge to cross to get there. The island is filled with wineries, restaurants, cheese and chocolate "factories".  We made it to the winery, Cassis Monna & Filles,  where all products are made from black currents rather than grapes....c'est tres bien!  We stopped at a roadside vendor and bought fresh berries and garden produce. Next stop was for local cheese but alas we ran out of time for the chocolate factory.... c'est dommage!  It's close to 7 now and we still have to make dinner, buy groceries and get ready for the next leg of the trip.  We will do a drive-by of the Parc de la Chute-Montmorency - these falls are taller than Niagara Falls and clearly visible from the highway. Later tonight we have to move the boat outside of the lock because we have to leave before it reopens in the morning. We have a 6 am departure planned according to tide and wind conditions....