I thought we needed a little break before Christmas and the arrival of our 2 new little grandsons (yes 2, but not twins) are arriving sometime in December early January. I am beyond excited.

When I mentioned it to Jim I think he started polishing his golf balls, when I told him Quebec City to see the Christmas Market he actually said yes. I was shocked so I booked before he could change his mind.

So Quebec City here we come from December 5 to December 8. Rain or snow, lol who I am kidding it will be snowy and chilly. I booked an excursion with Porter, I love Porter the little plane holds about 80 people and it took just over an hour. Wonderful.

Luckily before we ordered our Uber I checked our invoice. I told everyone including Jim that we were staying at the Chateau Frontenac. Like how many Chateau’s can there be, well there are 2 and we are staying at the Chateau Laurier which is absolutely lovely and just 700 meters from the walled city, right on the Plains of Abraham where the decisive battle was fought between the English and French. Now we have an excuse to come back, we have to stay at the Frontenac at least once in our lifetimes 🙂

After check in, first stop is for a hot bowl of soup to warm us up as we walk around the town. We end up in a restaurant, Aux Anciens Canadiens, that we ate in 33 years ago. Still just as lovely and food delish.

As we walk around Quebec City it feels like we are in a Christmas Village display, every street is lite up with lights and trees and boughs of holly and evergreens.  In the Lower Town there are chandeliers hanging from the lights, it is so magical.  The “Marche de Noel Allemand de Quebec”, is very similar to the Distillery District with a german flavour, schnapps instead of mulled wine.  Booths selling everything from warm fur hats to wonderful Quebec maple butter and syrup.  There are lovely warming stations throughout the market and lights and Christmas Carols to make everyone feel like Christmas is just around the corner (which it is LOL).

As we continue our wander, which is downhill the whole time we end up in the lower town.  The last time we were here the lower town was just starting to get popular, now every doorway was a shop or a restaurant, and surprisingly even more beautiful than the upper town with the lights.  We decided to eat down here and take the funicular back up after.  The hardest part about Quebec City is picking a restaurant, they are all busy and smell wonderful.  We settled on the Cochon Dingue where we had a lovely meal and a wonderful Pinot noir from Sicily called KRIS.  Will definitely try and buy this wine when back home.

Time to head home, uphill all the way and oops the funicular was closed.  This is going to be a long walk, a chill nipping our noses helped us to hurry on our way with a few stops to catch our breaths, but we made it, 15000 steps later and I was ready for bed.