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I'm in Quebec City now, as of a few days ago. The train ride was okay. Luggage wasn't as strict as a Not Just Bikes video made me fear: someone did measure my big bag, but supposedly for 'statistics'; they didn't weigh it in my site; they did take it away to be checked, which on boarding seemed reasonable, there's not a lot of luggage room. Seats were padded, curved, non-inclining; most of them were raised, but mine wasn't. Cart service provided food. Clean bathroom, no water tap. Possibly a dining/lounge car I didn't walk forward enough to find. Power, didn't try the wifi.
I'm staying in the Old City, within more or less intact city walls. Pros: very easy access to lots of touristy stuff, good views of the water, old buildings, exercise via hills. Cons: obligate exercise via hills, little cheap food. There are a few cheap restaurants: Subway, McDonald's, a shawarma place. But most tend to US$16 burgers on the low end. I don't think there's a single decent grocery story in the place; I've found three convenience stores, two of them nearly useless for groceries, one of them very limited. There's a half decent store 10 minutes away outside the wall, but very downhill, and beyond an annoying intersection. In small shops, there's a cafe that may double as a bakery. But if I wanted an easy food life, I should have been 20-30 minutes west, near Rue Cartier, with two full supermarkets, and a shopping gallery with boulangerie, fromagerie, poissonerie, charcuterie... In Montreal I quickly found cheap fried chicken and such places, and had to remind myself to go get groceries; here I haven't eaten out yet at all, apart from some fish I got at the remote poissonerie.
I haven't timed it, but the Old City feels maybe 10 minutes across, wall to cliff. Perhaps longer in the orthogonal distance, if only because you're going straight up hill.
So far I've just walked around a lot, stumbling upon a plaza, an old fort museum that was closing, the Governor's Promenade, the outside of the Citadel, and the wall itself.
To explain my snarky title, the Old City was obviously built long before the car. What would have been wide streets for people, and perhaps moderate ones for carriages, have been given over to a lane of parking and a lane of car traffic, with narrow sidewalks left for humans. Despite narrowness that feels like it should be low traffic, my street (Sainte Anne) is rather busy, often with a car every few seconds. At least my street is paved with asphalt; some have brick, which probably slows the cars down but makes them even louder.
Beyond the wall, the city likes its big intersections to be car-car-pedestrian scramble -- with only 20 seconds allocated for the scramble.
My apartment is a decent size, and less unpleasantly quirky and dark than my Montreal one, though I think perhaps not vacuumed well before me, that or I've somehow tracked in a ton of junk in a few days. Sound isolation isn't great but people are usually quiet at night, so far. The kitchen is way bigger than my old one, or the one before that. I have an actual separate bedroom, not a studio, though the BR is small; separation matters for isolating you from fridge noise, among other things, though this fridge is a lot quieter than the last one anyway.
I'm staying in the Old City, within more or less intact city walls. Pros: very easy access to lots of touristy stuff, good views of the water, old buildings, exercise via hills. Cons: obligate exercise via hills, little cheap food. There are a few cheap restaurants: Subway, McDonald's, a shawarma place. But most tend to US$16 burgers on the low end. I don't think there's a single decent grocery story in the place; I've found three convenience stores, two of them nearly useless for groceries, one of them very limited. There's a half decent store 10 minutes away outside the wall, but very downhill, and beyond an annoying intersection. In small shops, there's a cafe that may double as a bakery. But if I wanted an easy food life, I should have been 20-30 minutes west, near Rue Cartier, with two full supermarkets, and a shopping gallery with boulangerie, fromagerie, poissonerie, charcuterie... In Montreal I quickly found cheap fried chicken and such places, and had to remind myself to go get groceries; here I haven't eaten out yet at all, apart from some fish I got at the remote poissonerie.
I haven't timed it, but the Old City feels maybe 10 minutes across, wall to cliff. Perhaps longer in the orthogonal distance, if only because you're going straight up hill.
So far I've just walked around a lot, stumbling upon a plaza, an old fort museum that was closing, the Governor's Promenade, the outside of the Citadel, and the wall itself.
To explain my snarky title, the Old City was obviously built long before the car. What would have been wide streets for people, and perhaps moderate ones for carriages, have been given over to a lane of parking and a lane of car traffic, with narrow sidewalks left for humans. Despite narrowness that feels like it should be low traffic, my street (Sainte Anne) is rather busy, often with a car every few seconds. At least my street is paved with asphalt; some have brick, which probably slows the cars down but makes them even louder.
Beyond the wall, the city likes its big intersections to be car-car-pedestrian scramble -- with only 20 seconds allocated for the scramble.
My apartment is a decent size, and less unpleasantly quirky and dark than my Montreal one, though I think perhaps not vacuumed well before me, that or I've somehow tracked in a ton of junk in a few days. Sound isolation isn't great but people are usually quiet at night, so far. The kitchen is way bigger than my old one, or the one before that. I have an actual separate bedroom, not a studio, though the BR is small; separation matters for isolating you from fridge noise, among other things, though this fridge is a lot quieter than the last one anyway.