We went to visit the unique and historic citadel of Quebec City built on the other side of The Plains of Abraham by the early settlers following struggles with the native Indians and tensions with England and later the Americans. In 1759, following the Battle of the Plains of Abraham, when New France was ceded to England the British military authorities continued to worry that France might try to reconquer the city but they soon discovered that the United States was the real danger.
In 1775 and again in 1812 the Americans attacked Canada, each time unsuccessfully. For England, the entire colony would be lost if Quebec fell to the invader so in 1820, London authorised the building of a permanent citadel capable of resisting a siege during attack. It was an expensive and ambitious project. At the time of this decision the Upper Town was protected on all sides by the imposing bastioned wall ( that we saw today) and four towers. The natural cliff was also enclosed by a high wall and with the citadel looming over it the city became, for a time practically impregnable. Charles Dickens dubbed the city and its cliffs, " the Gilbraltar of America."
The governor still lives at the citadel today and the Royal 22nd Regement is still very active. Military exercises, such as the changing of the guard are the firing of the cannon at noon happen every day. We were able to see the changing of the guard during our visit but I think we were in the restaurant when the canon was fired or was that thunder? We did a self guided tour of the citadel. It had massive walls open moats to make attacking the enemy easier. There are at least 100 canons scattered throughout the city today on display for those who have never seen a Condon before - like the ones near the lighthouse on the hill in Wollongong- kids love to climb them. Some of the canons in the citadel are still in pristine firing condition and are fired (without canon balls) one daily at noon and others on special anniversary celebrations.
We explored some of the citadel buildings and then walked across The Plains of Abraham Parklands. On the way we passed a beautiful salmon-coloured-brick building which is being remodelled into apartments. The outside architecture is remaining true to its mid 19th century style but the inside is being rejigged to create ten apartments for residential living. Mounted proudly at the front of this three-storey building is distinguishing ebony plaque with clear bronze lettering. In both French and English the plaque acknowledges the history of the building assuring the history is not lost to future generations as it use changes over time. This building was built in 1865 as a private secondary school to accommodate increased student enrolments, from the school which first commenced in 1842. It played a pioneering role in Quebec education and in 1941, almost 100 years from its beginnings the private secondary school " amalgamated with Commissioner's High School, then located on Rue Saunt-Augustin, to form today's Quebec High School on Avenue Belvedere."
The skies were still overcast and conditions humid as we continued one self guided tour of the Upper a City. We came to a relaxing park where we stopped to watch a party of workers rebuilding part of the city wall. They were applying the same building techniques of the original builders except that they had modern scaffolding, hard hats, gloves, protective clothing and boots. They used cranes to lift the original stone blocks onto platforms but they selected blocks individually, passed them by hand along the wall and mixed small quantities of mortar by hand before carefully and intentionally inserting blocks of stone back into place. It was so interesting to watch this time honoured and timely process but we had to press on. Walking across the park and around a beautiful fountain in the middle of a roundabout we were cooled by the spray from the fountain . There on the other side was the continuation of the park with yet another" twin" fountain in its midst. This part of the park was next to the Parliament House buildings and it had beautifully manicured lawns and colourful garden beds with spectacular flower blooms and many mature oak and beech trees which provided shade areas across the park. And There was also a section where vegetables were being grown but sudden our arrival disturbed a cute squirrel having his afternoon snack. He froze for a minute hoping we could not see him and then he snuck up the nearest trees as fast as lightning and that we missed photographing him. Ah the hard life of being a photographer!
Then as we passed Parliament House we noticed that tours of the building were being offered so we lined up to join others in a new venture. We report on our tour in Quebec - 4 blog.
After our Parliament House tour we walked along some residential streets to get a feel for life in Quebec's Upper City. We loved the different architechtural French style of buildings which were stately and palatial in their day but some now have dual occupancy. In this same area we found an unusual grey stone church building which had turrets up to its bell tower. It looked well preserved on the outside and it is up for sale. However, it is being used to house a massive collection of used books, LP records, cassettes, CD's, videos and other collectable literacy. The interior has been stripped of its adornments and icons, leaving scars on the walls and age-old paint is peeling from ceilings, cornices and collums. It was a sad sight to see the internal deterioration of this once proud building. We assume some developer will strip the interior and create mini apartments within this shell whilst retaining the facade outside. Ken roamed the shelves and tables for a bit of history but almost all items were in French - makes sense doesn't it! He did manage to buy a CD of classical music which we will hear when we get home, and he only paid 3 euro for it, so it was a "bargain".
We couldn't resist photographing an iconic 21st century bronze tablo outside the Quebec library on our long walk back to the ship.
