Bienvenue! - Ottawa, ON to Quebec City, PQ

(Sorry for the late posting - this was written a week ago, but haven't had a chance to post it until now).

Since leaving Ottawa, we’ve been making our way across Quebec, taking a day off to rest in Quebec City.  Quebec has been awesome.  We’ve almost exclusively been riding along rivers, which has made for very leisurely riding on flat terrain with beautiful scenery.  A couple of days with tailwinds have made for even easier riding!  It’s been fun trying to dig out my old high school French.  Most people in restaurants and stores respond immediately in English, but I have persisted and I’m getting more and more responses in French. Not sure if that’s a sign that I’m getting better, or if people in the more Eastern regions are more happy to humour me! 

Leaving Ottawa

Along with the serene rides through the country, we have traveled through a couple of major cities.  The second day of the four, we rode through Montreal.  Going through the city, we happened upon the Gay Pride parade, which was an awesome diversion and a lot of fun to watch for a while.  Unfortunately didn’t have a chance to see much more of the city.  Given the choice, I would have preferred to entirely bypass the city, though I’m not sure whether that would have been feasible.  Trying to ride through a big city with a lot of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, while trying to stick together with other cyclists was really difficult.  But we made it through!  The day was not entirely easy after leaving the city, though.  With about 15 km left to go, the rain started pouring along with some thunder and lightning.  I think this spurred us all into action, and we rode quickly through the downpour into camp.  I was lucky enough to be on the cookteam this evening, and our galley station was situated right around a mudbath.  We were fortunate to have the help of other campers in preparing the meal, as many of us arrived late, and it turned out to be a good night.

Montreal (from the bridge)

 The highlight of this day (and one of the highlights of the trip, even) was as we went through one of the suburbs of Montreal.  One of our riders is from the area, and her family and friends had an amazing party set up for us – muffins, bagels, fresh mango smoothies and coffee, along with a porch to sit on and a great view of the water, made for an amazing stop! 

Mont St. Hilaire

The other big stop was Quebec City, where we had our rest day. Spent the rest day wandering around the city - I use the term "rest day" loosely, since I was on my feet for most of it, but the time spent sightseeing was completely worthwhile. The old city along the St. Lawrence was beautiful, food (so much food!) was delicious, and I had a lot of fun attempting my terrible French.  After a great dinner of Thai (and Tapioca pudding that tasted good but - with the green colouring - did not look appetizing), we enjoyed a FREE Cirque de Soleil show under a highway overpass. Until the day before, none of this knew that it was going on, and it was definitely worth losing a bit of sleep to stay out and watch it.  Very, very impressive - incredible talent!

Some pictures of the day wandering the city:

Chateau Frontenac

St. Lawrence River

Another view of the Chateau

Old Quebec City

More Old Quebec City

Anyway, that’s all for now.  I’m having a hard time believing that we have a short two weeks left until the tour wraps up!  But I’ll be sure to savour all of the time we have left.

Leaving Quebec City by ferry

Take care!

Ottawa, ON to Quebec City, PQ Riding Stats
4 Riding Days
567 km

Overall Riding Stats
47 Riding Days
6142 km

Peanut Butter Sandwiches consumed, to date: 106