You know it’s been a good trip when you sit down to write a post, and the first thought that comes into your mind is: “Where did I wake up this morning?”
Right. Quebec City, on the outskirts of Old Quebec. We visited the Plains of Abraham, solved a riddle and ate some really good burgers / steak / lobster rolls.
First stop of the morning was Le Casse-Crêpe Breton for breakfast.
So good that even the guy from the pub across the road eats there
They make a mean “grandma’s hot chocolate”:
We walked in around 9 am, and we’re very glad that we did – within twenty minutes there was a line halfway to the next restaurant.
The crepes were very good – among the best we’ve ever had. I had sausage-swiss-egg-pesto, while my wife had ham-goat cheese-egg-pesto. (Both just looked like crepes, so weren’t photographed.)
My son had chocolate-strawberry-whipped cream:
And my daughter had maple butter-strawberry-whipped cream:
Very tasty. Not a fast meal, but well worth the modest wait.
We then went off to that venerable Quebec institutions known as Cows (not a Quebec City institution at all, but more is more when it comes to our kids and ice cream) where the kids each got a cone. We then wandered around Old Quebec and took in some of the sights:
Chateau Frontenac doing what it does best – looming
The wheels began turning once more, and we considered when we might return to Quebec City. Right now, October 2026 is the earliest that we could possibly swing it.
And will we? Time will tell, I suppose. The kids are only young for so long, so we’re trying to squeeze in as much travel as we can – or as much as makes sense, at least. So if they’re in favour, I expect we will be too.
Back to the hotel, where we finished packing up. Check-out was a breeze, and it wasn’t long before we’d loaded the car and were on the road once more. Traffic was steady coming out of Quebec City – as you’d expect during a long weekend – but nothing excessive.
We’d been concerned that we might have trouble charging the car given that we were planning to stop at noon on the long weekend, but the Drummondville Electrify Canada was empty when I pulled up. I first attempted to charge at the 350 kW charger but only pulled a measly 43 kW.
I remembered that – during the trip down – several of the 350 kW chargers were showing a “reduced power” warning, so I shifted over to a 150 kW charger and immediately began pulling 105 kW. Much better!
My wife and kids showed up with lunch a few minutes later, and by the time I’d finished my nuggets we were back at 90%. The car continued to draw close to 100 kW for almost the entire charge, which was faster than expected. Hopefully we won’t need to charge much in Montreal – though we are trying to make it to Brockville before plugging in again, and that will be a hike.
Back on the road, and off to the Montreal Biodome. For some reason they directed us to the parking for the nearby sports complex, which fortunately had some of the “slow” (level 2) electric car chargers.
Unfortunately, these same chargers required an app – always fun to download in a parking garage – and had a $10 minimum purchase before we could get underway. But we really could use an extra 10% charge, so I figured it was worth the hassle.
Then into the biodome itself.
We started with the sub-Antarctic region and Labrador – lumped together due to their temperature. It was lovely to see king penguins again:
Including the world’s chonkiest ‘kiwi’ (baby king penguin) – bigger than many of the adults!
As well as gentoos, chinstraps, marconis and Northern rockhoppers:
The light in here isn’t great, so it was tough to get sharp photos. But it felt good to be taking some more ‘wildlife’ shots again.
On to the puffins:
I always forget that we have a healthy puffin population in Canada. Could be a good reason to go check out Newfoundland and Labrador:
We then headed over to the tropical rainforest. We saw some macaws:
I believe this is a giant South American river turtle:
A poison dart frog:
A capybara:
And an emperor tamarind:
Then off to the Gulf of St. Lawrence:
Where we saw the whimbrel (the larger of the birds) and a ruddy turnstone (smaller bird):
Next up was the Laurentian maple forest, where we saw a North American river otter:
A beaver:
And an anti-social lynx:
One of the Biodome signs seemed to mention something about a wolf, but it turned out it was only visible via some sort of augmented reality system. My daughter asked the staff, and they said there was a not-living wolf in the basement – which we took to mean a stuffed wolf. Confusing! (But we are in a French-language province, so it’s not exactly fair to expect that everything be done in English.)
After, we went to a series of bouncy structures just outside the biodome:
Photo Credit: Îlots76
It cost less than $15 for both kids to bounce around for an hour. There are food truck-style offerings for snacks and drinks available, but very little in the way of shade for waiting parents unfortunately. Our kids were there for perhaps 40 minutes, but would have easily stayed longer if we’d let them.
Time was wearing on, so we hopped in the car to make our way to Sonder Apollon where we’ll be staying in Montreal. Sonder is Marriott’s answer to AirBNB – multi-bedroom rentals generally with full kitechens and often in-room laundry (huzzah!) available at a reasonable cost. In their words, “hotel amenities without hotel formality.” (Coming soon – A head-to-head post in which I compare Sonder to an AirBNB rental during a visit to Toronto.)
Unfortunately, the Sonder Apollon also comes without hotel parking – so I’ll need to find a nearby parking lot where I can stash the car. But they do offer some near-ish options, so that’s something at least.
It took us a little over 20 minutes to cover 7 km, but eventually we pulled up outside Sonder Apollon.
Photo Credit: Sonder Apollon (website)
The entrance was a little more disordered than pictured when we arrived, as they’re setting up to film a movie here tomorrow. But we had no issues parking the car out in front for a few minutes while we shuffled bags inside.
We’d already received our access codes via the Sonder app, so no need to check in or speak with anyone at the front desk – though there is a staffed front desk at this particular Sonder in case anything comes up. This isn’t always the case, so worth checking before you book – from what we’ve seen, the Sonders with front desk staff tend to be higher rated than those without.
It cost us roughly $650 per night to book a 3 bedroom, 2 full bathroom unit which is quite well appointed:
There’s also our favouritest of amenities – laundry. (Though the washer / dryer are in the bathroom, which is a bit strange – but we won’t complain, so long as we get to clean some clothes.) And it’s a full size, front loading washing machine and full size dryer – not the combo washer / dryer we tend to get stuck with in city AirBnBs which start throwing error codes if you put in more than a single pair of jeans.
Meanwhile, I headed up to 249 Rue St.-Antoine (one of the Sonder-recommended lots) in search of underground parking. I had to circle the building once, but I eventually found the entrance – and a nest of reserved-only spaces, and then spaces only for pass holders. But I eventually found a spot.
Montreal isn’t exactly the car safety capital of Canada, so I’m hopeful it’s still present and intact when we come by two days from now. Time will tell!
Back to Sonder, where we put in a pizza order with Slice & Soda – one of the local pizza chains. They said it would be close to an hour before it was delivered, so that gave me some time to pop out to the local Couche Tarde and Beau Marche to pick up some odds and sundry.
The pizzas soon arrived, and they were massive – the sauce tasted freshly made, and the crust was nice and thin. Highly recommended.
Photo Credit: Slice & Soda (and yes, the slices really are that big)
The kids headed off to bed – each in their own room for once – and the adults enjoyed the view from the living room windows.
Then it was time for the adults to also call it a night. Big day tomorrow – a trip to the Montreal Science Centre and then off to Cirque du Soleil.