In early 2016, I ended up with airline miles I needed to consume or forfeit.  B was stuck in Chicago for work, giving Peeg and me each 12,500 miles to use for one-way travel (Looga was still under 2 and could travel as a lap infant):  the exact value of a United MileagePlus Saver Award anywhere in the contiguous U.S. or Canada.

I chose urban, as opposed to wilderness, for my first time traveling alone with kids because…axe-murders lurk in sparsely populated places (!!!!), and, at 3 and 1, Peeg and Looga were unlikely to be cooperative hiking partners.  After debating domestic (Washington D.C. and New Orleans) versus international (Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and Quebec City), I decided upon the most “exotic” option – Quebec City!  I chose the cheapest accommodations fulfilling my basic criteria: 1) within the fortifications of “old” Quebec and 2) a suite or apartment with separate bedroom so that I could turn on lights/tv in spite of sleeping children.  AirBnB came through, and I found a $50/night (including taxes, fees, etc) 1br in Vieux-Québec for our 4-night stay in early May.  (Here’s our apartment, but please note that the price has increased since I stayed there.)

We left Chicago on a lovely Spring morning.  I traveled light: Looga in a Boba Air, backpacks for me and Peeg, and a lightweight travel crib – the Lotus.  As soon as I left the car in O’Hare’s long-term lot, flaws in my strategy materialized.  Petite little Peeg was no match for her backpack and toppled backwards as soon as she tried to wear it.  I, however, had the crib on my back and Looga on my front, and therefore had to carry two backpacks (mine and Peeg’s) just in my hands.  I should’ve just brought my roller carry-on, since the only times I would’ve had to wheel it outdoors in Quebec City would have upon arriving and departing from the apartment (you live and learn).  Although the flights were uneventful, our connection in Montreal was stressful because I was carrying too much and lacked a spare hand to hold Peeg’s (at age 3, she had a hard time keeping up with me and was still afraid of escalators and automatic walkways).  Air Canada (the operator of our United flights) was simply marvelous, and I must have been giving off a “super mom” vibe since plenty of other travelers were cheering me on; a few lovely ladies even offered to hold Peeg’s hand on escalators.

Upon arriving in Quebec around 6pm, I decided to forgo navigating the public transport system and caught a taxicab to the apartment.  The apartment’s location was perfect – on the corner of two narrow charming streets that could’ve been anywhere in Europe.  Alas, even though we checked in almost 4 hours after our official check-in time of 3pm, there were no bedsheets or bath towels in the apartment.  I had hoped to eat food from the corner grocery at home that night and crash early, but those hopes were dashed when the AirBnB host apologized saying linens were in the laundry and wouldn’t arrive until 8pm.  Thus, I dropped off our bags and headed out with the kids for dinner.

Just around the corner, a bit further than the grocery, was a restaurant with a sidewalk sign advertising dinner, Le Petit Coin Latin.  The prices looked good, so we popped in.  They didn’t have highchairs but were pretty empty, so I tied Looga to a chair with the My Little Seat Travel High Chair and ordered the inexpensive prix fixe menu.  The disadvantage of writing this post a year down the line is that I can no longer remember exactly what I ordered or how much it cost, but I know I got a glass of house wine, bread (Looga’s choice of meal), a choice of appetizers from which we chose the escargot, an entree, and some sort of a dessert.  One of the beautiful things about traveling with kids is that they never fail to surprise.  Peeg *loved* the escargot…so much so that I had to order another one just for her!  The food was really quite good, and the restaurant was quietly charming.  Shortly after our food began to arrive, a woman entered the restaurant alone, and we recognized her as someone who had helped Peeg in the airport.  She was indeed traveling alone, so I invited her to join us, and thus began the most memorable part of our Quebecois adventure:  our friendship with “Ms. Jan.”  Had B been with us, we would never have had cause to exchange more than a smile, but instead we made a lovely new friend.  Jan was staying at a hotel just two blocks away from us, so after enjoying our dinner together, we exchanged numbers and decided to get together the following evening for dinner as well.  We then parted ways for the evening, and I stopped by the grocery to pick up some milk, cereal, bread, and fruit, and thankfully the linens had made it into our apartment by then.  Both kids went to sleep without any issue, but at about 11pm, Looga woke up in a terror and ended up spending the remaining nights sleeping in the bed with me and Peeg – I’d say so much for the travel crib, but on the few occasions we returned to the apartment for nap time he did use it, and I also plopped him back in the crib around dawn a few times, so I’m glad it was an available option.

The following morning, we breakfasted in the apartment and then decided to explore the city.  Alas, early May isn’t the best time to visit Quebec.  The weather is dreary, much of the city is under construction in preparation for late Spring and Summer’s tourist influx, and many of the museums were closed.  The weather projections had been highs in the low 50s with on and off light rain.  I decided that it wasn’t wet enough to merit packing rain boots, so for the kids I opted instead for warm Ugg boots, Hatley raincoats (waterproof outer with terry lining), and layering shirts with sweaters. We wandered around the

walls of the old the city, visited the old fortifications, and generally enjoyed exploring the upper city.  We picked up pastries for lunch from Paillard and consumed them on the go, and eventually made our way down the stairs from the upper city to the lower city to end up at the boat docks for a boat tour of the harbor (both kids were free).  Honestly, I didn’t love the boat tour with the kids.  It was bitterly cold outside on

the water, and I couldn’t let Frog out of the carrier on deck because he could easily have fallen overboard.  Indoors, the kids were going stir crazy, and the tour guide’s volume was soft enough that I felt like Peeg’s normal conversational voice could be disruptive to other passengers.  No one gave me a hard time or even a “look,” but we weren’t getting any benevolent smiles either, and I didn’t care for the experience as I would have liked.  After the boat tour, we walked along a shopping street in the lower city and then rode the Funicular back up to the upper city.  The kids *loved* the Funicular, and were it not for the lines, we would have gone up and down a few more

times.  Once back up, I let them run free for a bit, and we walked around at Looga’s pace and just took everything in for a time.   We then headed back to the apartment, had a snack, and the kids took a nap.

I love to eat, and I especially love to eat well, so when I was researching Quebec City and the name Legende kept cropping up, I was intrigued.  Legende is an upscale restaurant specializing in “traditional” Canadian fare…food made from ingredients that are all locally grown and sourced.  Of course, visiting a fancy restaurant with little ones is a daunting prospect – not just for parents, but also for restaurant staff and other patrons.  Still, I was too intrigued to back down from the idea, so before embarking on our trip, I’d

made a 5:30pm reservation with the hope that most of the dinner crowd wouldn’t be out that early.  Because the reservation was made online, it was easy for me to modify it to add an extra person when Jan expressed interest in joining us for dinner.  After the kids’ nap, we met up with Jan and walked out of the old city over to the restaurant.  To the staff’s credit, no one batted an eye when I waltzed in with two young children, and they were most accommodating despite the restaurant clearly being an adult affair (no highchairs, for example, but I did have the My Little Seat), and they even brought out colored pencils and coloring books for the kids.  Jan and I both ordered the prix fixe tasting menu without drinks, and I ordered a few extras for the kids along the way.  The food was absolutely fantastic.  A year out, the most memorable dishes were reindeer carpaccio, moose liver pate, arctic char, and the accompanying wonderful local/seasonal vegetables.  Peeg and Looga both tried everything, but they both ended up falling in love with wild boar pork rinds and eating several servings of those.  Jan’s presence ended up being a godsend because Looga was pretty restless from having been toted around in a carrier most of the day.  He had a few meltdowns when I kept him from running around, and because Jan was there I was able to carry him out of the restaurant to calm him a few times.  Had Jan not been there, Peeg would have freaked out and refused to stay seated on her own. Jan, a grandmother herself, seemed charmed by Peeg, and Peeg was totally enamored of her, so their friendship was a delight to see.

 

Wednesday morning, we had breakfast in the apartment again, but because I was running dangerously low on diapers we had to foray out of the old city to find a pharmacy.  The lovely walk down Rue St Jean made me decide that next time I traveled

I would only bring enough diapers for the transit day and first morning because diapers are so easy to buy on location.  Even the non-tourist portions of Quebec City were charming.  Lots of cafes and restaurants, and most marvelously, old churches that have been converted into libraries.  Right near the pharmacy, we discovered a fantastic little bakery, Panetier Baluchon, that had pain au chocolat to die for.  The woman who worked there was incredibly sweet and let the kids pick out extra cookies and refused payment for them.  We then headed back to the old city where I had booked a horse-drawn carriage tour for the kids the day before, and Jan joined us again for that.  The tour didn’t really add a whole lot of value to my impression

of the city, but the kids loved it.  The driver’s dog came along with us too, which tickled the kids pink.  One thing I might add here is that I don’t speak a lick of French, so given some of the region’s Francophone politics I had been worried that we might encounter some linguistic trouble.  My fears were unwarranted.  I made sure to say bonjour, merci, au revoir, and ask parlez-vous Anglais every possible opportunity, and I had Peeg do the same – everyone responded in English (with varying levels of proficiency) and melted like butter at Peeg’s attempts.

After the carriage tour, we parted ways with Jan again, walked around for a bit, and then had brunch at La Buche on Rue St Louis, a bustling strip of restaurants, galleries, and tourist shops.  The restaurant was a fun spot with good food – I finally got to try poutine! – and it was very child-friendly (highchairs, kids menu, coloring, entertaining waitstaff).  After lunch, we did a hop-on-hop-off double decker bus tour, and I loved it.  I learned a ton about the city and got to see a lot more of it than I would have on foot, and the kids loved riding on the bus and even took a nap.  I resolved to do double-decker bus tours with kids whenever I visit a place where they’re available.  I especially recommend doing them early in a visit because they can help identify areas where one will want to return to explore further.  That evening we decided to return to Le Petit Coin Latin for dinner both because it was convenient and because Peeg kept clamoring about the escargot, and then we went for an after dinner walk where Peeg got her portrait sketched before retiring to the apartment for the evening.

When I had stopped by the tourism office to purchase our bus tours on Wednesday, I had noticed a 5 hour tour of the Quebecois countryside.  Given the success of the prior bus tour, we decided to try the countryside tour on our final day in town.  Friday morning we had breakfast in the apartment, hurried down Rue St. Jean to buy some pastries to-go from Panetier Baluchon again, and then hustled back to watch street musicians before catching the minibus for the tour (again, the kids were free).  The tour was wonderful: the bus was comfortable, the countryside beautiful, and the stops varied and interesting.  We visited the Isle of Orleans, a copper

museum, Montmorency Falls (where the kids got to ride a cable car and run wild in a playground), an amazing bakery/maple shop, and the Basilica of Ste Anne de Beaupre.  The kids enjoyed every stop, lunched on the pastries we had packed, enjoyed toast with maple butter at the bakery stop, and napped well too.  Between the two bus tours, in and outside of the city, I felt like I got some solid sightseeing in too.

 

 

It was a beautiful day, so after the countryside tour, we played in the town square for a while and then met up with Jan for a final time to witness some sort of ceremony in progress outside a nearby cathedral – there was a lot of church-bell ringing and priests dressed in elaborate Catholic regalia.  We attempted to have dinner with Jan at Aux Anciens Canadiens, but Looga was just not having it – he started to have an utter melt-down in the restaurant, so we had to beat a hasty exit.  Jan was sweet enough to get our food packed and bring it to us back at our apartment, so we didn’t go hungry (or have yet another pastry-based meal).

With that our trip came to a close.  We had an early Friday morning flight, and I was able to book a taxi in advance by phone.  I packed almost everything the night before, kept some pastries on hand, and in the morning I just got everyone dressed and piled them into the cab.  We had an uneventful direct flight back home, but it was official:  I became a solo mom adventurer, Looga became an international traveler, Peeg was just an all-around champ, and clearly our adventures had only just begun :).