Eating
It is when you start eating in Québec City that the French ancestry of the Québécois hits all the senses: the city’s restaurants present an array of culinary delights adopted from the mother country, from humble baguettes to sumptously presented gourmet dishes. The lively cafés are ideal starting points for immersing yourself in the city, as you wash down bowls of soup and croûtons (toasted baguettes dripping with cheese) with plenty of coffee.
Vieux-Québec (upper and lower) is home to most of the gourmet restaurants and cafés; in Haute-Ville you’ll generally find better value along rue St-Jean than rue St-Louis. Other areas have their fair share of eating spots as well – notably Faubourg Saint-Jean-Baptiste and Saint-Roch (both eclectic and cheaper) and, just outside the walls, Grande-Allée (generally touristy and expensive). Your best bet for good-value mid-price restaurants is to head for the numerous terrace-fronted establishments on av Cartier, near the Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Québec. Although prices in the city tend to be rather high, even the poshest restaurants have cheaper lunchtime and table d’hôte menus. Authentic French-Canadian cooking – game with sweet sauces followed by simple desserts with lashings of maple syrup – is available at very few places in town, although the many cabanes à sucre on Île d’Orléans offer typical meals to tourists.
Haute-Ville
The ten square kilometres of Vieux-Québec’s Haute-Ville, encircled by the city walls, form the Québec City of the tourist brochures. Dominated by the Château Frontenac, it holds a glut of historic architecture and several compelling museums. The whole area is undeniably enchanting, and simply strolling along its maze of streets is one of the city’s great pleasures.
Place d’Armes and around
Haute-Ville’s 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 throngs of weary sightseers. Champlain established his first fort here in 1620, on the site now occupied by the gigantic Château Frontenac, probably Canada’s most photographed building. Beside it stands the Maison Maillou, which houses the Québec chamber of commerce. Dating from 1736, this grey-limestone metal-shuttered house, with its 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, is the former Palais de Justice, a Renaissance-style courthouse designed in 1877 by Eugène-Étienne Taché, architect of the province’s Parliament buildings.
Château Frontenac
New York architect Bruce Price drew upon the French-Canadian style of the surroundings to produce the Château Frontenac, a pseudo-medieval red-brick pile crowned with a copper roof. Although the hotel was inaugurated by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1893, its distinctive main tower was only added in the early 1920s, resulting in an over-the-top design that makes the most of the stupendous location atop Cap Diamant. Numerous notables, including Queen Elizabeth II, have stayed here.
Fronting the Château Frontenac, the wide clifftop boardwalk of the Terrasse Dufferin provides a spectacular vantage point over Basse-Ville and the St Lawrence. Underlying part of the boardwalk are the foundations of Frontenac’s Château St-Louis, which served as the governor’s residence for two centuries until a fire destroyed it in 1834. The leafy park running alongside the boardwalk was the château’s garden – hence its name, the Jardin des Gouverneurs. To the south, a long flight of stairs leads up to the Promenade des Gouverneurs, a narrow boardwalk perched precariously on the cliff face below the Citadelle that leads to the Plaines d’Abraham.
At the north end of the terrace – 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 a funicular descends to Vieux-Québec’s Basse-Ville; save that for the weary walk back up, and instead take the stairs down at the north end of the terrace to the Porte Prescott, one of the city’s four rebuilt gates.
Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec
The impressive bulk of the Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Québec constitutes 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 its seventeenth-century forebear. Absolute silence within the cathedral heightens the impressiveness of the Rococo-inspired interior, culminating in a ceiling of blue sky and billowy clouds. The altar, a gilded replica of St Peter’s, is surmounted by an elaborate baldachin uncharacteristically supported by angelic caryatids rather than columns due to the narrow space, and is topped by a statue of Jesus standing on a gilded sphere. The pewter sanctuary lamp, to the right of 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. Unfortunately, the only part of the crypt you can see on the informative guided tours is a mundane modern corridor.
Château Frontenac
New York architect Bruce Price drew upon the French-Canadian style of the surroundings to produce the Château Frontenac, a pseudo-medieval red-brick pile crowned with a copper roof. Although the hotel was inaugurated by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1893, its distinctive main tower was only added in the early 1920s, resulting in an over-the-top design that makes the most of the stupendous location atop Cap Diamant. Numerous notables, including Queen Elizabeth II, have stayed here.
Fronting the Château Frontenac, the wide clifftop boardwalk of the Terrasse Dufferin provides a spectacular vantage point over Basse-Ville and the St Lawrence. Underlying part of the boardwalk are the foundations of Frontenac’s Château St-Louis, which served as the governor’s residence for two centuries until a fire destroyed it in 1834. The leafy park running alongside the boardwalk was the château’s garden – hence its name, the Jardin des Gouverneurs. To the south, a long flight of stairs leads up to the Promenade des Gouverneurs, a narrow boardwalk perched precariously on the cliff face below the Citadelle that leads to the Plaines d’Abraham.
At the north end of the terrace – 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 a funicular descends to Vieux-Québec’s Basse-Ville; save that for the weary walk back up, and instead take the stairs down at the north end of the terrace to the Porte Prescott, one of the city’s four rebuilt gates.
Séminaire de Québec and Musée de l’Amérique Française
Next to the cathedral, the old Séminaire de Québec was founded by the aggressive and autocratic Monseigneur François de Laval-Montmorency in 1663. 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 he. 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; the other departments were moved to the western suburb of Sainte-Foy.
Public access is limited mainly to the ever-expanding Musée de l’Amérique Française (Museum of French America), whose four sections occupy a small part of the old Séminaire. The entrance – and departure point for one-hour guided tours of the seminary – is in the Welcome Pavilion in the Maison du Coin, next to the basilica. Upstairs, adjacent to a small exhibition on the early colonists, the Roman-style chapel has a Second Empire interior housing Canada’s largest collection of religious relics – bones, ashes and locks of hair of various saints. Laval’s memorial chapel contains his ornate marble tomb (his remains are now in the basilica). 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; pass through the gates to visit the rest of the museum. Alternatively, take the underground corridor directly from the chapel; along the way a photo exhibit fills in the history of the Séminaire’s buildings. Either way, you end up at the museum’s Pavillon Jérôme-Demers, which displays a tiny sample of the eclectic items gathered by Québec’s bishops and the academics at Laval – scientific instruments, an Egyptian mummy (with a remarkably well-preserved penis) – as well as ecclesiastical silverware and some of Laval’s personal belongings. The museum’s name derives from the exhibition on the second floor, The Settling of French America, which illustrates the history of the emigration and settlement of the more than nineteen million North Americans of French stock.
The Citadelle
Dominating the southern section of Vieux-Québec, the massive star-shaped Citadelle can only be visited on one of the worthwhile guided tours. The tour de force of Québec City’s fortifications, the Citadelle occupies the highest point of Cap Diamant, 100m above the St Lawrence. This strategic site was first built on by the French, but the British constructed most of the buildings under orders from the Duke of Wellington, who was anxious about American attack after the War of 1812.
The complex of 25 buildings is the largest North American fort still occupied by troops – being home to the Royal 22nd Regiment, Canada’s only French-speaking regiment. Ranged around the parade ground are 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 Cap Diamant Redoubt, built in 1693 and thus one of the oldest parts of the Citadelle, and the 1750 powder magazine, now a mundane museum of weaponry and military artefacts.
In addition to the guided tours, the admission price includes the colourful Changing of the Guard (late June to early Sept daily 10am), which you can catch at the end of a 9am tour (otherwise arrive by 9.45am), and the Beating of the Retreat tattoo (early July to early Sept Fri–Sun 7pm, at the end of the 6pm tour).
Open-air venues
In summer, open-air venues are particularly popular in Québec City. The largest is the Agora, in the Vieux-Port, a huge amphitheatre used for a range of productions (such as Cirque du Soleil), including a few major international draws.
A summer-long programme of activities is also enacted on open stages in the Jardins de l’Hôtel de Ville; at the Parc de la Francophonie beside Grande-Allée, just beyond the Parliament buildings; and in the place d’Youville. In place Royale and at the Kiosque Edwin-Bélanger bandstand on the Plaines d’Abraham, there are various free classical music concerts.
From May to September there are dance, theatre and music events at various outdoor venues, and throughout the year performances can be caught at the city’s theatres, most of which are in trendy Saint-Roch (though note plays tend to be in French only). The liveliest months are February and July, when the entire city is animated by its two principal festivals: the excellent Carnaval and the equally frenzied Festival d’Été. Tickets for most events can be purchased through Admission (t 1 800 361 4595, w admission.com) and Réseau Billetech (w billetech.com). For information on the city’s goings-on, check out the listings section in the French daily newspapers Le Soleil and Journal de Québec and the free weekly newspaper Voir (w voir.ca). The quarterly bilingual magazine for tourists Voilà Québec (w voilaquebec.com) also carries information, as does the English Québec Chronicle-Telegraph (w qctonline.com), published every Wednesday.