Today was a holiday in Quebec, Saint-Jean-Baptiste day. When we were in France for their Saint-Jean fête, they burned an effigy, and had concerts and cremonies. Here they had a street party and a free music festival. Today is actually the day before the actual holiday. I’m preparing for the chance that lots of places (grocery stores and gas stations) may be closed tomorrow.

It rained hard overnight again. Luckily no lake in our campsite this time since we are at the top of a hill! We had a lazy breakfast and went back to the campground lobby to play and do laundry. It was still raining and rain was expected all day so the laundry was busy–everyone had the same idea. We ended up staying in the lobby for lunch where they had a nice little cafe.

The girls and Asa played Lego for most of the time and I had to drag them away after 3 hours. Cal used the free wifi and played video games with friends online.

The rain forecast cleared up for the rest of the afternoon and it now it said no rain until after 6pm. We grabbed umbrellas just in case and went into centre-ville (downtown). It was a complete zoo to try and find parking. We drove up and down streets for about 30 minutes. There were temporary no parking signs (because of the fête) everywhere and closed roads due to construction and the fête. We finally ended up near Plains of Abraham which is pretty central and found free parking! The information I found online said the celebration was on Grand-Allée and we were on Grand-Allée but couldn’t hear any party happening. The kids spotted a playground so we stopped there to play for a while.

I asked a playground dad where the fête might be and he sent us in what he believed was the right direction but he wasn’t sure. We saw other moms and kids walking that way with purpose so we figured he was right.

The street was closed for pedestrians and they had acrobats and a drum group performing. Cal was really enthralled by the drum group. He was in percussion ensemble this year at school so he appreciated the talent shown by the drummers. The girls liked it but it was a bit loud for them.

After listening to a whole set by the drummers, we went in search of a Quebec flag. Lots of people had them and Nova really wanted to wave one. We found a souvenir shop in Old Quebec selling them and bought some. The kids bought Canadian flags too but I made them put them away until after we leave the festival. Today is about Quebec, not Canada and no one was holding Canadian flags. I had a feeling it would be a major faux pas.

We found a cool fountain you can play in at City Hall.

We walked around Old Quebec then for a while and found another playground. This one had an obstacle course (or parkour as the kids called it).

It started misting then and we all got out rain ponchos or umbrellas for our walk to dinner. It reminded me of my last trip to Quebec with Nole.

We passed a hundred restaurants but they were all too fancy. We found a cool food court a few blocks away where the girls and I got pizza and the boys had burgers.

There is free live music in Quebec tonight but with the rain we decided to head back to the camper. We have a long day of driving ahead of us tomorrow. We went back to the campground lobby. I’m sure the people that work here were thinking “these guys again?” but the kids really wanted to play some games and play with Legos before bed.