Montmorency Falls and Isle d'Orleans tour

Wednesday, August 22
Our first full day in Quebec City started out very wet. It had rained through the night and the heaviest rain was mid-morning. Not a great day for sight-seeing. So we waited it out and the weather radar showed promise of clearing skies. About noon we headed into the City. We went over the Pierre Laporte bridge, the largest single span bridge in Canada at 2190 feet (667 Meters) and a total length of 3415 feet (1041 meters). We followed Hwy 40 around and through the city. We made our way to the top observation area for Montmorency Falls. At one and a half time higher than Niagra Falls they are pretty impressive, even at the low summer flows. It must be quite a sight in winter when they are frozen.

The Pierre LaPorte Bridge. It's a big one.

Busy traffic, but Quebec City seems pretty easy to get around in.....especially after having driven in Montreal!!

The bridge above Montmorency Falls

These don't look so big.....but this is just the first and smaller set......

........then you see this! Wow, one and a half times higher than Niagra, albeit much smaller volume.

I could have taken the stairs to the bottom viewpoint.........but how would I get back up?

You can take a zipline across the gorge. A big lineup waiting to do just that.

The suspension bridge across the falls.

We drove back to another vantage point. This is Manoir Montmorency.

A beautiful building. The original was destroyed by fire and this is an exact replica.

Tons of flowers.

A bed of flowers. How romantic!

The grounds were stunning.

The view of the falls was mostly hidden.

It had just rained so water droplets adorned these beautiful flowers. No idea what they were.

We drove to the bottom viewpoint to get the best view of the Falls.

Very impressive.

You can view the falls from various points. Once you paid the admission charge at one spot you can go to the others by showing your receipt. So we next stopped at the old hotel, Manoir Montmorency. This is a reproduction as the original burned down, but still very impressive. The grounds are gorgeous.

Next we went to the bottom of the hill for a view from there. The rain was sporadic, but persistent every time I wanted to stop and take pictures.

We then headed over to Isle d'Orleans. The island is huge 'garden' of sorts. They have market gardens, apple orchards, dairy and beef cattle,  and lots of artistic shops. The views are incredible. A 67 km road circles the Island. You don't want to be in a hurry here. The roads are very narrow, twisty, and busy; but what a beautiful drive!

Onramp to the Isle d'Orleans bridge.

Kinda narrow.

What a pretty Island

Narrow streets.....

....and roads.

Huge fields of market garden.

Very cool properties.

Fabulous views

Interesting history

Some awesome churches

With statues

Quaint homes

even little churches

beautiful villages

just enough room for two horse carts to pass!

Very retro RV!

We stopped a couple of times for  closer look, and about mid-way we stopped at a church that coincidentally had a small bakeshop/restaurant across the road.

This restaurant was across from the church and called to us!

They served delicious pastries. Not sure why the blueberry one has a couple of bites missing??! The others were apricot and lemon cranberry. Very tasty!

Back on the road we toured the rest of the island (about a 67 km or 40 mile loop) then made our way back across the bridge and on to Hwy 40 that would take us home.....eventually.

Some big homes with million dollar views.

Some big barns....

.....and smaller barns.

The huge church across the channel is Saint Anne du Beaupre. It is the second largest church in Quebec after the Notre Dame Basilica in Montreal. Many Catholics make a pilgrimage to view it. It is said many miracles have resulted from a visit there. (read more)

An equestrian barn.

A quick glance at the clock told us we were dead in the middle of rush hour! We moved about a mile in an hour, but the congestion cleared a bit as we hit the LaPorte Bridge. We arrived back at Camping Transit just before 6PM.

We were in traffic like this for over an hour. Should have stopped for a beer, but we couldn't get off the freeway!

One more barn......just because!

We had a great day. Even though we got a very late start we saw some incredible scenery and really found out what rural Quebec is like.

....and that was Our View From Here!