300C.com

Quebec City Destinations

EXPLORE QUEBEC CITY

Around the City

There are various options for a swift or protracted trip out from the city. In Wendake , west of the city, the past and present crafts of Canada’s only surviving Huron community can be seen, while to the east the Côte-de-Beaupré , though something of a city annexe, boasts the spectacular waterfalls of Chute Montmorency and in the Canyon Ste-Anne . Just offshore, the ÃŽle d’Orléans has a tranquil charm, its agricultural landscapes dotted with gîtes and auberges, and the homes of the well-heeled. For those in search of wilderness, the Réserve Faunique des Laurentides is within easy reach and there are a number of ski hills in the area. Lévis , on the opposite shore of the St Lawrence, is less inundated by visitors than Québec City and has great views of its more illustrious neighbour.

City buses and bicycle paths run to Chute Montmorency and Wendake, a few Intercar buses go daily to Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré , and a quick ferry trip lands you in Lévis. The HiverExpress winter shuttle bus (tel 525-5191) connects the ski slopes with downtown hotels for around $25 return. The only places for which your own transport is essential are the wildlife reserve, ÃŽle d’Orléans and Canyon Ste-Anne.

Artillery Park

Backtracking to Côte de Palais and down the hill a few steps, rue McMahon leads to the northwest corner of Vieux-Québec and Artillery Park , whose immense defensive structures were raised in the early 1700s by the French, in expectation of a British attack from the St Charles River. After Québec fell the British added to the site, which was used primarily as a barracks for the Royal Artillery Regiment for more than a century. In 1882 it became a munitions factory, and a foundry was added in 1902, later providing the Canadian army with ammunition in both world wars; it finally closed in 1964. The massive Dauphin Redoubt, named after Louis XIV’s son, typifies the changes of fortune here: used by the French as the barracks for their garrison, it became the officers’ mess under the British and then the residence of the superintendent of the Canadian Arsenal. The jumble of fortifications is well explained at the reception and interpretive centre (Feb-March & Nov-Dec Wed-Sun noon-4pm; April to early May Wed-Sun 10am-5pm; early May to Oct daily 10am-5pm, except July & Aug until 6pm; $3.25, guided tours an additional $3.25; www.parkscanada.gc.ca/artillerie ) in the former foundry beside Porte St-Jean. The centre has displays on the military pedigree of the city, including a vivid model of Québec City in 1808. The nearby Officers’ Quarters, where the British officers lived until 1871, is set up as it was circa 1830, with costumed guides relating the everyday lives of the soldiers and officers

Cartier-Brebeuf National Historic Site

Northwest of Vieux-Québec, on the banks of the St-Charles River (bus #3 or #4), the Cartier-Brébeuf National Historic Site , 175 de l’Espinay (daily: May to early Sept 10am-5pm; early Sept to mid-Oct 1-4pm; $3; www.parkscanada.gc.ca/brebeuf ) has a double claim to fame. It marks the spot where Jacques Cartier spent the winter of 1535-36 in friendly contact with the people of the surrounding Iroquoian villages - a cordial start to a relationship that Cartier later soured by taking a local chief and nine of his men hostage. It is also where Jean de Brébeuf, with his Jesuit friends, built his first Canadian residence in 1625: Brébeuf is best known for his martyrdom near today’s Midland in Ontario . The interpretive centre features an excellent account of Cartier’s voyages and of the hardship he and his crew endured during the winter. The guided tour of the site (included in the entrance fee) leads to a mock-up of an Iroquoian longhouse and sweat lodge set within a palisade, where costumed guides demonstrate daily tasks, mostly to the benefit of the kids. Keep an eye out for the resident muskrat.

Chapel des Ursulines

Heading south along rue des Jardins brings you to the narrow rue Donnacona, where a sculptured hand holding a quill - a monument to the women who, since 1639, have dedicated their lives to teaching young Québécois - rests on a pedestal. It seems to point the way to the Chapelle des Ursulines , built by a tiny group of Ursuline nuns who arrived in Québec in 1639 calling themselves “the Amazons of God in Canada”. Their task was to bring religion to the natives and later to the daughters of the settlers, a mission carried out in the classrooms of North America’s first girls’ school - the buildings still house a private school. They also cared for the filles du roi , marriageable orphans and peasant girls imported from France to swell the population. These girls were kept in separate rooms in the convent for surveillance by the local bachelors, who were urged to select a wife within fifteen days of the ship’s arrival - a fine of three hundred livres was levied on any man who failed to take his pick within the period. Fat girls were the most desirable, as it was believed they were more inclined to stay at home and be better able to resist the winter cold.

The Ursulines’ first mother superior, Marie Guyart de l’Incarnation, was widowed at age 19 and left her son with family when she entered the Ursulines de Tours monastery twelve years later. Her letters to him once she finally made it to Québec give some sharp insights into the early days of the city: “It would be hard to live here an hour without having the hands protected and without being well covered. Although the beds are covered well with quilts or blankets, scarcely can one keep warm when lying on them.” Her likeness can be seen in a replica of a posthumous portrait by Pommier in the interesting little museum (May-Sept Tues-Sat 10am-noon & 1-5pm, Sun 1-5pm; Oct-April Tues-Sun 1-4.30pm; $4), housed in the former home of one of the first nuns. A painting by Frère Luc, though executed in France, pictures a Canadian version of the Holy Family: Joseph is shown presenting a Huron girl to Mary, while through the window one can glimpse Cap Diamant and the St Lawrence flowing past wigwams and campfires. Other paintings, documents and household items testify to the harshness of life in the colony, but lace-work and embroidery are the highlights, particularly the splendid ornamental gowns produced by the Ursulines in 1739.

Marie de l’Incarnation’s remains are entombed in the oratory, but public access is limited to the adjoining chapel (May-Oct Tues-Sat 10-11.30am & 1.30-4.30pm, Sun 1.30-4.30pm; free), rebuilt in 1902 but retaining the sumptuous early eighteenth-cent-ury interior by sculptor Pierre-Noël Levasseur. A plaque indicates General Montcalm’s resting place below the chapel, though only his skull is buried there. The collection of seventeenth and eighteenth-century paintings were acquired from France in the 1820s. Next to the museum the Centre Marie-de-l’Incarnation (Feb-Nov same hours as chapel; free) sells religious and historical books, and displays a few of Marie’s personal effects.

Citadelle

Dominating the southern section of Vieux-Québec, the massive star-shaped Citadelle is the tour de force of Québec City’s fortifications. Occupying the highest point of Cap Diamant, 100m above the St Lawrence, the site was first built on by the French, but most of the buildings were constructed by the British under orders from the Duke of Wellington, who was anxious about American attack after the War of 1812.

The complex of 25 buildings covers forty acres and is the largest North American fort still occupied by troops - it’s home to the Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada’s only French-speaking regiment. Around the parade ground are ranged various monuments to the campaigns of the celebrated “Van-Doos” ( vingt-deux ), as well as the summer residence of Canada’s governor general and two buildings dating back to the French period: the 1750 powder magazine, now a mundane museum of military artefacts, and the Cap Diamant Redoubt, built in 1693 and thus one of the oldest parts of the Citadelle.

In addition to entertaining hour-long guided tours around the Citadelle (daily: April 10am-4pm; May & June 9am-5pm; July & Aug 9am-6pm; Sept 9am-4pm; Oct 10am-3pm; $6; www.lacitadelle.qc.ca ), other activities include the colourful Changing of the Guard (mid-June to early Sept daily 10am) and the Beating of the Retreat tattoo (July & Aug Wed-Sat 6pm).

Faubourg St. Jean-Baptiste

If you want to take a break from the old city, head through the Porte St-Jean and across Place D’Youville to where rue St-Jean picks up again in the former faubourg - the name given to the settlements that once stood undefended outside the city walls - of St-Jean-Baptiste . The quarter’s studenty atmosphere is more laid-back than the rest of Québec, with cheaper restaurants and great nightlife spots.

A five-minute walk will bring you to the Protestant Burying Ground (May to mid-Nov daily 7am-11pm), Québec City’s first Protestant cemetery and now the oldest one remaining in the province. Many historical figures were buried here between 1772 and 1860, including Lt Col James Turnbull, Queen Victoria’s presumed half-brother. Further along on the same side of the street, Maison Jean-Alfred Moisan has been in the grocery trade since 1871, making it the oldest grocery store in North America. The tin ceilings and wooden furnishings provide a backdrop for fine foods and baked goods.

The district’s namesake, the Eglise St-Jean-Baptiste , 410 rue St-Jean (late June to mid-Sept Mon-Fri & Sun 11am-4pm, Sat 9am-4pm), dominates the faubourg, its spire rising to 73m. When reconstruction began after a fire destroyed the original church in 1881, local architect Joseph Ferdinand Peachy looked to France for inspiration - the facade is a close reproduction of the Église de la Trinité in Paris.

Hotel Dieu

The ten-minute walk along rue des Remparts circles round the north side of the Séminaire to the Hôtel-Dieu du Précieux Sang , the oldest hospital north of Mexico. The adjacent stone buildings are still occupied by the Augustinian order of nuns, who founded the hospital in 1639. Turning left up Côte du Palais and first left again leads to the Musée des Augustines de l’Hôtel-Dieu de Québec , 32 rue Charlevoix (Tues-Sat 9.30am-noon & 1.30-5pm, Sun 1.30-5pm; donation), where the artworks include some of Québec’s oldest paintings, among them the earliest-known portrayal of the city in the background of the portraits of the Duchess of Auguillon and her uncle Cardinal Richelieu, who together funded the hospital. Another notable painting is the Martyrdom of the Jesuits , a gruesome tableau showing the torture of Jesuit missionaries in southern Ontario by the Iroquois in 1649. (Only a disappointing black-and-white engraving is on display to the public.) Grateful patients also donated a fine collection of antique furniture, copperware and ornaments. Many of the items are from France, as the first settlers usually found themselves interned in the hospital to recover from the diseases rife on the ocean crossing. A collection of medical instruments from the seventeenth to mid-twentieth century is also on display. On request the Augustines offer free guided tours of the chapel and the seventeenth-century cellars where the nuns sheltered from the British in 1759.

Jardins des Gouverneurs

Rue Haldimand, around the corner from the Musée d’Art Inuit, leads to the Jardin des Gouverneurs , whose wonderful prospect of the St Lawrence was once the exclusive privilege of the colonial governors who inhabited the Château St-Louis. The garden’s Wolfe-Montcalm obelisk monument, erected in 1828, is rare in paying tribute to the victor and the vanquished. Converted merchants’ houses border this grandiose area, and the nearby streets are some of the most impressive in Vieux-Québec - check out rue de la Porte and the parallel rue des Grisons on the park’s west side, which boasts some fine eighteenth-century homes.

To escape the tourist hordes for a bit, follow rue Mont-Carmel, on the northern side of the square, to the almost unnoticed Parc du Cavalier du Moulin , a quiet little park that’s perfect for a picnic. The remnant of a defensive bastion built atop Mont Carmel hill, this was part of the seventeenth-century French fortifications that protected the city’s western side. You can’t really see walls from this angle, but you can see the rear facades of the houses on rue St-Louis.

From the Jardin des Gouverneurs, ave Ste-Geneviève runs west towards Porte St-Louis. En route, turn right onto rue Ste-Ursule for the Chalmers-Wesley United Church at no. 78 (July & Aug Mon-Fri 10am-5pm; free), built in 1852 and one of the most beautiful in the city. Its slender, Gothic Revivalist spires are a conspicuous element of the skyline and, inside the stained-glass windows are worth a look. Opposite, the 1910 Sanctuaire de Notre Dame du Sacré-Coeur (daily 7am-8pm; free) also has impressive stained-glass windows.

A left turn onto rue St-Louis leads to the Porte St-Louis, one of the four gates in the city wall. It’s surrounded by Parc de l’Esplanade , the main site for the Carnaval de Québec, and departure point for the city’s smart horse-drawn calèches. The park’s Centre d’interprétation des Fortifications-de-Québec , 100 rue St-Louis (early May to early Oct daily 10am-5pm, except late June to early Sept 9am-5pm; $2.75; www.parkscanada.gc.ca/fortifications ), includes a powder house constructed in 1815 and a dull exhibition on the fortifications. Most visitors start their 4.5-kilometre stroll around the city wall from here. You can also take a ninety-minute tour with a costumed guide for $10.

Jardins de l’hotel de Ville

Returning to the old city at Porte St-Jean, head south on the steep rue d’Auteuil as it runs alongside the fortifications up to Porte Kent, next to the Chapelle des Jésuites , 20 rue Dauphine (Mon-Fri 9am-11.30pm & 1-4.30pm; free). The church’s delicately carved altar and ecclesiastical sculptures are by Pierre-Noël Levasseur, one of the most illustrious artists to work on the early Québec parish churches.

Rue Dauphine continues northeast to rue Cook, which leads east to the Jardins de l’Hôtel de Ville , scene of numerous live shows in the summer. The park surrounds the Hôtel de Ville (City Hall), which dates from 1883, and is overlooked by the far more impressive Art Deco buildings of the Hôtel Clarendon and the Édifice Price (the city’s first skyscraper), at nos. 57 and 65 Ste-Anne, respectively.

By the corner of rue Ste-Anne and rue des Jardins stands the first Anglican cathedral built outside the British Isles, the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity (daily: May & June 10am-6pm; July & Aug 9am-8pm; Sept-Nov 10am-6pm; free guided tours; www.ogs.net/cathedral ). The king of France gave the site to the Récollet Fathers but their church burnt down in the late eighteenth century. Its replacement, constructed in 1800-04 on orders from George III, followed the lines of London’s church of St Martin-in-the-Fields. The simple interior houses the 1845 bishops’ throne, reputedly made from the wood of the elm tree under whose branches Samuel de Champlain conferred with the Iroquois. Many of the church’s features came from London, including the silverware from George III. The golden bars on the balcony denote the seats for the exclusive use of British sovereigns. In the courtyard are Les Artisans de la Cathédrale, Québec-based artisans whose small crafts and clothes stalls avoid tourist tack.

Maisons Jacquet and Kent

On the corner of rue des Jardins and rue St-Louis - the main restaurant strip in Vieux-Québec - stands Maison Jacquet , occupied by the restaurant Aux Anciens Canadiens . The name comes from Québec’s first novel, whose author, Philippe Aubert de Gaspé, lived here for a while in the middle of the nineteenth century. Dating from 1677, the house is another good example of seventeenth-century New France architecture, as is the blue-and-white Maison Kent at no. 25 on the other side of rue St-Louis, which was built in 1649. Once home of Queen Victoria’s father, the Duke of Kent, it’s best known as the place where the capitulation of Québec was signed in 1759.

Musee d’art Inuit de Brousseau

The delightful Musée d’Art Inuit Brousseau , at 39 rue St-Louis (daily 9.30am-5.30pm; $6), traces the development of Inuit art from the naive works of the mid-twentieth century to the highly narrative and intricately carved sculptures by contemporary artists. The few ancient items include simple ivory works from the nomadic Dorset and Thulé cultures. Stone sculpture really began in the 1940s, replacing the declining fur and hunting industries as a source of income - the Inuit artists used aspects of everyday life such as animals and hunting for inspiration, but would also carve an ashtray if they thought they could sell it to a traveller passing through. One such man, James Houston, became convinced that these sculptures needed a wider audience and organized sales of their work in the south - the nucleus of the Brousseau’s collection came from these sales, one sculpture per year. A video shows the surprisingly coarse tools used to make the graceful objects.

Musee du Quebec

Canadian art had its quiet beginnings in Québec City three hundred years ago, and the full panoply of subsequent Québécois art can be found in the 20,000-strong collection of the Musée du Québec , whose bright, glassy entrance is at the foot of rue Wolfe-Montcalm, on the western edge of Parc de Champs-de-Batailles (June to early Sept Mon-Tues & Thurs-Sun 10am-6pm, Wed 10am-9pm; early Sept to May Tues & Thurs-Sun 11am-5pm, Wed 11am-9pm; $7, free on Wed Sept-May only; www.mdq.org ). If you don’t fancy walking, bus #11 connects Vieux-Québec to avenue Wolfe-Montcalm along Grande-Allée. As you face the entrance hall, the museum’s original Neo classical building, now known as the Gérard-Morisset Pavilion, is to the right; and the recently renovated Victorian prison, renamed the Charles-Baillairgé Pavilion, is to the left.

It’s a bit of a shame that the Musée du Québec’s impressive permanent collection is no longer on display to the degree that it once was, but the space freed up does allow for touring exhibitions in addition to artist or movement-specific shows using parts of the collection as the nucleus. A good survey of Québécois art up to 1945 can be found in the two galleries on the top level of the Gérard-Morisset Pavilion , though. The first of these hosts “Québec, l’art d’une capitale nationale”, which covers the period from the beginnings of Québécois art in the early seventeenth century until the end of the nineteenth century. Religious art dominates the earliest works, which coincide with Québec City’s role as the capital of New France until the British conquest. The influential output of painter Frère Luc , a former assistant to Poussin, can be seen in The Guardian Angel (1671), depicting the story of Tobias and the archangel Raphael. Sculptures in this period were also heavily influenced by Catholic themes as Québec churches were the primary art commissioners at the time. The most notable contributions to the collection are by two dynasties: the works of brothers Pierre-Noël and François-Noël Levasseur from the mid-1700s displayed here capped a century of family achievements. Three generations of Baillairgés succeeded them, their copious output including the architecture of churches as well as their interior decoration, evidenced by François Baillairgé ‘s pulpit for the old church in Baie-St-Paul.

Under the British, Québec City’s next incarnation as a capital saw a broadening in subject matter with a penchant for portraiture among the middle and upper classes. The bourgeoisie’s favourite portrait painter was Antoine Plamondon , who trained in Paris under Charles X’s court painter Guérin, himself a pupil of the classicist David - a lineage evident in Plamondon’s poised Madame Tourangeau (1842). Théophile Hamel , a pupil of Plamondon, combined what he learned from his tour around Europe in the 1840s - the palette of Rubens and the draughtsmanship of the Flemish masters - in his Self-portrait in the Studio , painted soon after his return. The first artist to depict Canadian landscapes was the Québec-born Joseph Légaré , whose sympathy with radical French-Canadians led to his imprisonment after the 1837 Rebellion. His View of the Fire in the Saint-Jean District of Quebec City, Looking West - depicting the 1845 conflagration that made 10,000 homeless - is the most powerful of his many paintings recording local scenes and events. His contemporary, Amsterdam-born Cornelius Krieghoff , became one of the best-known artists of the period for his romanticized landscapes of Québec-area landmarks. Unfortunately, only one is on display - Indian Encampment at Lac Saint-Charles - painted in 1854, the year after he arrived in Québec City.

The adjacent gallery, “Tradition et modernité au Québec”, covers the modernist period of Québécois art, contrasting the changing tastes and styles between the 1860s and 1940s through paintings, prints, drawings, decorative arts and sculpture. In the first part of the exhibition, paintings fight for space on the walls, much as they would have in a late-nineteenth century salon . The subsequent decades are a tug-of-war of styles, as European movements had a strong impact on Québécois artists visiting or studying there at the time. Although born in Ontario, Horatio Walker moved to Québec in the 1880s and became completely engrossed in the lives of the French-Canadian habitants , as shown in his The Return from the Wedding (1930). The European influence made itself felt in sculpture throughout this period as well, largely due to Rodin, as evidenced in Alfred Laliberté ‘s bronzes and the plaster works of Marc-Aurèle de Foy Suzor-Côte . The latter is perhaps better known for his paintings, which also have a Parisian influence: Cartier Meets the Indians at Stadacona (1907) was painted shortly after his return, and the contrast between impressionistic style and traditional subject is emblematic of the entire exhibition.

The works of the Group of Seven are more usually associated with the remote wilds of Ontario, but Arthur Lismer , one of the Group’s founders, visited Charlevoix many times, producing pieces such as Québec Village, Ste-Hilarion (1925). Urban life at the time is admirably recorded by Adrien Hébert . Rue St-Denis (1927) wonderfully captures the spirit of Montréal in the 1920s with the chic cut of a woman’s coat contrasting with an ever-omnipresent church in the background. The contemporaneous Marc-Aurèle Fortin ‘s best works were his impressionistic renditions of trees, as seen in The Elm at Pont-Viau , where one gigantic tree of numerous intense greens dominates the entire riverscape. The modernism of Matisse and Picasso was introduced to Canada by Alfred Pellan , who returned from Paris in 1940 to teach at Montréal’s École des Beaux-Arts. Pellan’s comparative radicalism is best represented by his Young Woman with a White Collar (1934).

The only permanent contemporary exhibition is a room devoted to Jean-Paul Riopelle on the ground floor of the Gérard-Morisset Pavilion. As you enter, you are immediately confronted by his Sun Spray (1954), a large canvas that feels like a stained-glass mosaic and leaves no doubt regarding his abstract leanings. The principal work, and the impetus for devoting the gallery to him, is L’Hommage à Rosa Luxemburg (1992), a forty-metre-long triptych, whose thirty segments create a narrative and “a painted metaphor for his life and art”. The title of the piece is misleading, though - it was more of a reaction to the death of his companion of 25 years, the American painter Joan Mitchell, and the ghostly spray-painted outlines - made by placing objects both natural and man-made on the canvas - seem to suggest this sudden void. Nearby, what appear at first glance to be map cabinets have pull-out drawers - an ingenious way to put as many etchings and lithographs on display as possible.

In the Charles-Baillairgé Pavilion , the red-brick interior walls of the former jail have been spruced up, creating a warm atmosphere in sharp contrast to the sombre grey stonework that prevails outside. Vaillancourt’s Tree on rue Durocher sweeps up into the atrium, which leads to the temporary galleries and a few of the old prison cells. Look out for the prison’s tower, where Montréal sculptor David Moore has created a unique two-storey sculpture of huge wooden torsos and legs that scale the walls and a central figure that dives from the summit. The building also shares space with the Centre d’Interprétation de Champs Batailles ($3.50). Give it a miss - the disjointed narrative and sometimes unclear visuals of the centre’s multimedia show don’t do a great job of telling the history of the Plains of Abraham. Do have a look to see if the free temporary exhibits by the entrance are worthwhile, though.

National Battle Fields Park

Westward of the Citadelle are the rolling grasslands of the National Battlefields Park , a sizeable chunk of land stretching along the cliffs above the St Lawrence. The park encompasses the historic Plains of Abraham , which were named after Abraham Martin, the first pilot of the St Lawrence River in 1620. The Plains were to become the site on which Canada’s history was rewritten. In June 1759 a large British force led by General Wolfe sailed up the St Lawrence to besiege General Montcalm in Québec City. From the end of July until early September the British forces shuttled up and down the south side of the river, raking the city with cannon fire. Montcalm and the governor, Vaudreuil, became convinced that Wolfe planned a direct assault on the citadel from Anse de Foulon (Wolf’s Cove), the only handy break in the cliff face - opinion confirmed when lookouts observed a British detachment surveying Cap Diamant from across the river in Lévis. Montcalm thus strengthened the defences above Anse de Foulon, but made the mistake of withdrawing the regiment stationed on the Plains themselves. The following night the British performed the extraordinary feat, which even Wolfe had considered “a desperate plan”, of scaling the cliff below the Plains via Anse de Foulon, and on the morning of September 16 Montcalm awoke to find the British drawn up a couple of kilometres from the city’s gate. The hastily assembled French battalions, flanked by aboriginal warriors, were badly organized and rushed headlong at the British, whose volleys of gunfire mortally wounded Montcalm. On his deathbed Montcalm wrote a chivalrous note of congratulations to Wolfe, not knowing that he was dead. Québec City surrendered four days later. The park’s Discovery Pavilion , below the tourist office at 835 ave Wilfrid-Laurier est (May-Oct daily 11am-5.30pm except Mon Sept-Oct), has maps, information panels and a short film.

The dead of 1759 are commemorated by a statue of Joan of Arc in a beautifully maintained sunken garden just off ave Wilfrid-Laurier at Place Montcalm by the Ministry of Justice. More conspicuous, standing out amid the wooded parklands, scenic drives, jogging paths and landscaped gardens, are two Martello towers, built between 1805 and 1812 for protection against the Americans. Martello Tower 2, on the corner of Wilfrid-Laurier and Taché, is only open to school groups, whilst Martello Tower 1 (June & Sept to mid-Oct Sat & Sun 10am-5.30pm; late June to early Sept daily 10am-5.30pm; $3.50), further south in the park, has superb views of the St Lawrence from its rooftop lookout. The views are almost as good from the base of the tower, and you don’t have to pay for an unmemorable exhibition in order to reach the top; children get to dress up in costumes for the optional tour. Further west, outside the Musée du Québec, there’s a monument to General Wolfe, whose body was shipped back to England for burial, pickled in a barrel of rum. Beyond the park’s western peripheries, cannons ring the perimeter of a large playing field and there’s another lookout point above where Côte Gilmour winds down the cliffs at Anse de Foulon.

Parliament Buildings

Sweeping out from Porte St-Louis and flanked by grand Victorian mansions, the tree-lined boulevard of Grande-Allée is proclaimed the city’s equivalent of the Champs Élysées, with its bustling restaurants, hotels and bars. Adjacent to the Loews Le Concorde hotel, Place Montcalm has a monument to Montcalm and a more recent statue of Charles de Gaulle, the French president who declared “Vive le Québec libre” in the 1960s, much to the separatists’ delight. This area is now known as Parliament Hill, a new name that caused a lot of controversy, as Canada’s Parliament area in Ottawa has the same title and anglophones thought it presumptuous of Québec City to label itself like a capital city. However, there is indeed a hill here, and upon it, at the eastern end of Grande-Allée, stand the stately buildings of the Hôtel du Parlement (late June to early Sept Mon-Fri 9am-4.30pm, Sat & Sun 10am-4.30pm; early Sept to late June Mon-Fri 9am-4.30pm; www.assnat.qc.ca ), designed by Eugène-Étienne Taché in 1877 in the Second Empire style using the Louvre for inspiration. The ornate facade includes niches for twelve bronze statues by Québécois sculptor Louis-Philippe Hébert of Canada’s and Québec’s major statesmen, while finely chiselled and gilded walnut panels in the entrance hall depict important moments in Québec’s history, coats of arms and other heraldic features. From here the corridor of the President’s Gallery, lined with portraits of all the Legislative Assembly’s speakers and presidents, leads to the Chamber of the National Assembly, where the 125 provincial representatives meet for debate.

Place d’armes

The ten square kilometres of Vieux-Québec’s Haute-Ville, encircled by the city walls, form the Québec City of the tourist brochures. Its centre of gravity is the main square, the Place d’Armes , with benches around the central fountain serving in the summer as a resting place for weary sightseers. It was here that Champlain established his first fort in 1620, on the site now occupied by the gigantic Château Frontenac , probably Canada’s most photographed building. New York architect Bruce Price drew upon the French-Canadian style of the surroundings to produce a pseudo-medieval red-brick pile crowned with a copper roof. Although the hotel he designed was inaugurated by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1893, its distinctive main tower was only added in the early 1920s - during which time the hotel never closed - resulting in an over-the-top design that makes the most of the stupendous location atop Cap Diamant. Numerous celebrities, including Queen Elizabeth II, have stayed here, and the hotel has hosted one pair or more of newlyweds every night since it opened. The hotel has fifty-minute guided tours departing on the hour from the lower level (May to mid-Oct daily 10am-6pm; mid-Oct to April Sat & Sun noon-5pm; $6.50; reservations preferable tel 691-2166).

The cape’s clifftop is fringed by the wide boardwalk of the Terrasse Dufferin , which runs alongside the château and the Jardin des Gouverneurs to the fortifications of the Citadelle, overlooking the narrowing of the river that was known to the aboriginal peoples as the kebec - the source of the province’s name. At the beginning of the walkway - which offers charming views of the river - stands a romantic statue of Champlain and, beside it, a modern sculpture symbolizing Québec City’s status as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. From here steep steps and a funicular descend to Vieux-Québec’s Basse-Ville .

Beside the Château Frontenac , where rue St-Louis enters the square, is the Maison Maillou , which houses the Québec chamber of commerce. Dating from 1736, this grey-limestone house, with metal shutters for insulation and a steeply slanting roof, displays the chief elements of the climate-adapted architecture brought over by the Norman settlers. On the west side of the square, on the spot where the Récollet missionaries built their first church and convent, stands the former Palais de Justice , a Renaissance-style courthouse designed in 1877 by Eugène-Étienne Taché, architect of the city’s Parliament Buildings.

On the northeast corner of Place d’Armes, where rue Ste-Anne intersects with rue du Fort, is the Musée du Fort (late Jan to March Thurs-Sun 11am-4pm; April-June & Sept-Oct daily 10am-5pm; July-Aug daily 10am-6pm; $6.75), whose sole exhibit is a 37-square-metre model of Québec City circa 1750. You can only see it as part of the quaint thirty-minute sound and light show, when the city’s six major battles, including the battle of the Plains of Abraham and the American invasion of 1775, are re-enacted - a fairly pricey history lesson.

Parallel to rue du Fort is the narrow alley of rue du Trésor where French settlers paid their taxes to the Royal Treasury; nowadays it is a touristy artists’ market. Visitors who want to take home a portrait rather than a saccharine cityscape should shuffle into the pedestrianized section of Ste-Anne to the west of du Trésor, which is full of portraitists and their subjects. At 22 rue Ste-Anne, in the impressive 1732 Maison Vallée, the Musée de Cire de Québec (daily: June-Sept 9am-10pm; Oct-May 10am-5pm; $3) is populated by unrealistic wax figures of Québécois luminaries from Champlain to Lévesque. Production values are a bit higher at the Québec Expérience show back around the corner at 8 rue du Trésor (8 daily; 30min; $6.75). The 3D multimedia show will appeal more to the MTV generation than to history buffs as holographic characters and animatronics give a potted history of Québec.

Quartier Latin

Québec City’s small Quartier Latin , in the northeast section of Vieux-Québec, is dominated by the seventeenth-century seminary in whose grounds stands the Basilique Notre Dame de Québec (Mon-Fri 9am-2pm, Sat & Sun 9am-5pm and between shows ; free). The oldest parish north of Mexico, the church was burnt to the ground in 1922 - one of many fires it has suffered - and was rebuilt to the original plans of 1647. Absolute silence within the cathedral heightens the impressiveness of the Rococo-inspired interior, culminating in a ceiling of blue sky and billowy clouds. The silver chancel lamp, beside the main altar, was a gift from Louis XIV and is one of the few treasures to survive the fire. In the crypt more than nine hundred bodies, including three governors and most of Québec’s bishops, are interred. Champlain is also rumoured to be buried here, though archeologists are still trying to work out which body is his.

Access to the cathedral is limited to half an hour at a time in the afternoons unless you pay for the 45-minute Act of Faith sound and light show (May to mid-Oct Mon-Fri 4-5 shows daily from 3.30pm, Sat & Sun 2-3 shows daily from 6.30pm; $7.50). Architectural details are illuminated and isolated in the darkness to give you a sense of the volumes that make up the church’s interior.

Next door to the cathedral, in the Maison du Coin, is the entrance to - and departure point for one-hour guided tours of - the ever-expanding Musée de l’Amérique Française , whose four sections occupy a small part of the old Séminaire (June-Sept daily 9.30am-5pm; Oct-May Tues-Sun 10am-5pm, www.mcq.org ; $4, free on Tues Sept-June). The Séminaire was founded by the aggressive and autocratic Monseigneur François de Laval-Montmorency in 1663. In the three decades of his incumbency, Laval secured more power than the governor and intendant put together, and any officer dispatched from France found himself on the next boat home if Laval did not care for him. Laval retired early due to ill health, brought on by a religious fervour that denied him blankets and proper food. Death finally came after his feet froze on the stone floor of the chapel during his morning prayer session.

At its construction, the seminary was the finest collection of buildings the city had seen, leaving Governor Frontenac muttering that the bishop was now housed better than him. Primarily a college for priests, the seminary was also open to young men who wanted to follow other professions, and in 1852 it became Laval University, the country’s first francophone Catholic university. Today, only the school of architecture remains; most of the other departments were moved to the western suburb of Ste-Foy.

The Welcome Pavilion in the Maison du Coin has a small exhibition on the early colonists upstairs and adjoins the Roman-style chapel, whose Second Empire interior houses Canada’s largest collection of relics - bones, ashes and locks of hair, a few of which are on display. Laval’s memorial chapel contains his ornate marble tomb, but not his remains, which were moved to the basilica when the chapel was deconsecrated in 1993. The whole interior is a bit of a sham, though - fed up with rebuilding after the chapel burnt down yet again in 1888, the church authorities decided to construct the pillars and coffered ceilings out of tin and paint over them; the stained-glass windows have been painted on single panes of glass and even the tapestries are the result of some deft brushwork.

The wrought-iron gates between the Welcome Pavilion and the basilica lead into a vast courtyard flanked by austere white buildings with handsome mansard roofs, through which you can pass to visit the rest of the museum. Alternatively, take the underground corridor directly from the chapel; a photo exhibit fills in the history of the Séminaire’s buildings. Either way, you end up at the Pavillon Jérôme-Demers (same opening hours as the museum), which displays mostly well-presented, historical exhibitions, which are only a tiny sample of the eclectic items gathered by Québec’s bishops and academics at Laval: scientific instruments, an Egyptian mummy - with a remarkably well-preserved penis - a diverting collection of European and Canadian paintings assembled by the art historians, as well as silverware and some of Laval’s personal belongings.

Copyright Rough Guides Ltd as trustee for its authors. Published by Rough Guides. All rights reserved.The Rough Guides name is a trademark of Rough Guides Ltd.

No excursion to French speaking Canada is complete without a visit to exuberant, romantic Québec City, a travel destination found in one of the most beautiful natural settings in North America. The well preserved Vieux-Québec (Old Québec) is small and densely packed, and is steeped in four centuries of history and French tradition. 17th and 18th century buildings have been carefully maintained and preserved over the centuries and are bordered by numerous attractive parks which contain historic monuments.

The government of Québec has completely restored many of the centuries old buildings of Place Royale, one of the oldest districts on the continent. Because of its meticulous preservation of this, the only fortified city remaining in North America, UNESCO has designated Vieux-Québec a World Heritage Site.

Perched on a cliff above a narrow point in the St. Lawrence River, Québec City has a view that seems to take in the whole world. In the 17th century the first French explorers, fur trappers, and missionaries came here to establish the colony of New France. Today, it still resembles a French provincial town in many ways. The culture, music, food, and art are all distinctly influenced by the French. At the same time, the Quebecois have created their own enduring culture with its unique traditions, flavors, sounds, and sights.

Québec City’s split level landscape divides Upper Town on the cape from Lower Town, along the shores of the St. Lawrence. Separating these two sections of the city are cliffs of steep and precipitous rock, against which were built more than 25 escaliers (staircases). Both parts of the town offer attractions ranging from from centuries old buildings to beautiful churches. The city also has an amazing array of cabarets, cafes, and restaurants where visitors can enjoy the unique Quebecois cuisine.

Quebec City is the closest one can come to being in France without leaving North America. Visitors to Quebec City are never disappointed. The blend of French culture with other traditions has produced an amazing city of timeless treasures and memories to be shared