Aug 9

Aug 9 Day 5 Quebec City, Quebec, Canada

Iconic Hotel Frontanc taken from deck of Polaris

As I am finishing my daily blog and video editing from yesterday, the Captain is docking in Quebec City. The iconic Hotel Frontenac can clearly be seen from Deck 5 of Viking Polaris with a beautiful blue sky backdrop.

Today, I have two excursions booked. First, at 9am, I have booked the Old Town Quebec Through A Lens tour ($59). On Viking Polaris, guests are not issued excursion tickets, instead, they check your stateroom number off a list shore side.

I met my guide for Tour #4 (as indicated by the red lollipop sign) along with 17 other guests hoping to get some great photos of Quebec City. Our guide is a local photographer and she was quite friendly. Also along on this tour was Molly, one of the ship’s Expedition Team members who is also a very capable photographer.

As we walk down the pier toward the entry point to town, I stop to take a photo of Viking Polaris docked in Quebec City.

Our guide stops the group at a good vantage point for getting a photo of Hotel Frontenac before we head into town.

The Most Photographed Building In Canada

Once we arrive in town, we walk to the Funicular for the ride up to Upper Town. Quebec City is divided into an Upper Town and Lower Town.

From Upper Town, you get a completely different perspective of Hotel Frontenac. Of course, there are many statues and other sights worthy of photos and video along the way.

This was a much more strenuous tour than was indicated in Viking’s excursion descriptions . There was a LOT of walking and much of it up and down steep hills or stairs. It was good for me to get the exercise, but a few of the guests were struggling.

At one point in the tour, we walked up to the fort, which is the highest point in the city, and this offered some great photo opportunities for churches and the Lower Town. I decided to leave the tour group early and go back to the ship on my own since I had another tour at 1pm.

I don’t know my way around Quebec City, but I followed the general rule of thumb: “walk downhill and, sooner or later, you will reach water”. Once I could see the river, I knew exactly where the ship was docked and it was easy to find my way back.

Churches Always Make Great Photo Subjects

At 1pm, Rickee and I disembarked for my second tour (Rickee’s first) of the day. This was the Old Town On Foot (Included) tour.

Disembarking In Quebec City For Second Tour Of The Day

We met our local guide, Ann, shore side and, along with Nicholas, one of the Expedition Team Members, we set off on yet another walking tour.

This tour was three hours long and, while not as strenuous, this tour had no scheduled bathroom breaks included along the way. There was also no free time for souvenir shopping, which was a bit strange. There were only seven guests in our group, and a couple left the tour early to do some shopping. When we arrived back at the ship, there were only three of us remaining in the group.

Ann, Our Walking Tour Guide For This Afternoon

This tour was similar to my earlier tour, but not nearly as strenuous. The tour once again involved a ride on the Funicular up to Upper Town where the majority of the tour took place.

Ann gives the group some of the history of Quebec City as we stop in a local square. At one point, we were able to walk down into the underground excavated area of the original Governor’s castle from the 1600’s. There are over 1 million artifacts that have been recovered here. A government tour guide did an excellent job of explaining the history of the excavation and the artifacts. This stop was the highlight of the tour for us.