Rue Saint-Louis in Old Quebec City
After traipsing across a freakishly wintry Europe back in the early aughts, I would have thought I was done with snow, ice and city wandering in the same trip.
But I hadn’t yet been to Québec City.
Sure, it can easily dip into negative Fahrenheit, but with 400-plus years of history, a passion for fairy lights, a cuisine based largely on pies and a slew of magical apertifs, the whole city pretty much had me at “bonjour.”
Perched above and beside wide swaths of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles rivers, Québec City was founded in 1608 as the French colony of New France, the first major settlement in North America. Several centuries later, both this capital and its entire eponymous province have remained so enmeshed with their French roots that they threaten to secede from Canada all together.
Some folks feel like this might not actually be a huge loss for the country.
The highlighted portion here is the province of Québec.
See Québec City way down there in the lower right-hand corner, about 2 ½ hours northeast of Montreal? It rests amongst a narrow and lovely band of the Laurentian Mountains and lowland forests. The rest of the province — which is roughly three times the size of France — is an Arctic tundra, sparsely populated by First Nations tribes. Safe to say that if there weren’t maple trees in the hills or mineral deposits up in them there snowdrifts, many Canucks (from Ontario on west, anyway) would be just fine bidding adieu to Québec.
For now, the capital remains proudly French-speaking, partially separatist and Canadian, with a reputation for being cold-shouldered to English speakers; I arrived in town feeling nervous that my rudimentary grasp of the language would earn me a heaping dish of scorn. However, when I used just a few polite, halting words of French, I was greeted just about everywhere with warmth, patience and varying amounts of English. I found it necessary to point to a few maps and menus to make myself understood, but I never felt unwelcome — only regretful that I hadn’t brushed up my vocabulary.
My two flights from L.A. to Québec City took about 9 hours, combined. While international flights to Québec City (YQB) are possible, the most ubiquitous carrier, Air Canada, will often route you through Toronto (YYZ), where coffee and donuts are plentiful, wi-fi is free and winter delays are infrequent. From Toronto, Québec City is an approximately 1-hour, 20-minute flight.
To experience the city’s Winter Carnival, I was stationed at the adjacent and venerable Hilton Québec; from its hillside concrete perch, it features amazing views and loads of perks for conventioneers, school groups and families, but offers minimal romance for couples.
The good news is, just a few blocks away in Old Québec, my head was consistently turned by lovely boutique hotels that ranged from cozy and inviting to high-concept and luxurious. A few standouts were the Hôtel Le Clos Saint-Louis, the Hôtel Le Priori, Auberge du Quartier, and right along the river, the Auberge Saint-Antoine.
Perfectly preserved Old Québec is the city’s biggest tourist draw, but despite a few tacky/cheery souvenir shops, the sprawling neighborhood is a pure delight — even in the dead of winter. Here, Christmas never seems to die: even in February, lights, ribbons and pine swags remain proudly on display, and every few blocks, there are elaborate ice sculptures on display (e.g., thrones, ships and beavers). The spiral, cobblestone layout winds you ever lower past churches, municipal buildings, boutiques, restaurants and homes to the industrial banks of the St. Charles.
Rue Saint-Louis is the heart of the Haute-Ville (Upper Town), where you’ll find:
The city’s oldest restaurant, Aux Anciens Canadiens, where you can warm up by a stone fireplace with a hearty elk loin and a gargantuan slice of sugar pie, which is essentially (and blissfully) a maple-laced pecan pie without the pecans.
Le Château Frontenac, which, like just about every other huge, iconic, baronial and obsessively-photographed hotel property in Canada, is owned by Fairmont; be sure to nurse a snifter of sortilège, or maple whiskey, in the octagonal Bar St-Laurent and enjoy some of the city’s best river views.
The 19th century Funicular, which can take you up the Old Town’s cliff face and and back again.
Just below the Frontenac is Parc Montmorency, which has tall, antique trees, a rim of cannons, a stately statue of French explorer Jacques Cartier and a kick-ass view of the St. Charles. In the winter, this is a great place to see the river try to keep rushing despite a glut of ice and snow; you can reach the clifftop town of Lévis across the way via a (heated, enclosed) ferry.
Below the Parc is the Basse-Ville (Lower Town), the Place-Royal, Old Port and the Rue Petit-Champlain, quite possibly the most adorable pedestrian-only street west of the Atlantic Ocean. In the surrounding streets you’ll find:
Cuddly and glowy Le Lapin Sauté, where the specialty of the house, the rabbit pie, allowed me my own personal Roger & Me moment. Loved the stone walls, the friendly service and the 4-foot tall pepper mill in the shape of a carrot, but the weird, tiny bones? Not so much.
The Fresque des Québécois, a humorous building-wide mural that, in glorious flourish, depicts the history of Québec City.
Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, a small 18th-century French Colonial church used in the arrest scene of the Leonardo DiCaprio-Tom Hanks movie, Catch Me if You Can.
Casual and delicious Le Cochon Dingue, where I felt lucky to try the seafood-potato-and cream pot pie called pot-en-pot, the comfort-food specialty of Quebec’s northeastern Magdalen Islands.
And for the hot chocolate of the gods, La Fudgerie. Thick, rich and spiked with a hit of chili and spice, just a little takes you a long way.
Also while in town:
Wander the hallowed aisles of the city’s oldest gourmet grocery store and cafe, Maison Jean-Alfred Moisan. For breakfast, try a teeteringly huge muffin or a dense and sweet tarte pomme, but pass on the wan, enormous bowl of hot chocolate in favor of a pretty latte.
Try a gorgeous, almost entirely clear local Cidre du Minot at the Pub St-Alexandre. Their burgers aren’t too shabby, either.
From January through early March, experience a sense of Québec in the 1800s by going snowshoeing across the city’s largest park, the Plains of Abraham, with a historical re-enactor. Your guide, dressed in ivory woolens with a hand-woven sash, will belt out a patriotic Quebecois song or two and tell pithy antecdotes from a bygone era while you tramp alongside the river and up and over a hill. In warmer weather, this same route would make for a romantic stroll.
Head ten minutes outside the city to the spectacular Montmorency Falls, where you can watch the action from a gazebo at the half-flow mark, from a pedestrian bridge at the top, or from high above at Manoir Montmorency, an early 18th-century mansion, museum and destination restaurant with a view of the whole river valley and the Laurentian Mountains.
To me, old Québec City felt like a trip to a small town in France that lives in both its past and present. The clean, clear landscape that surrounds the modern city, though, is pure Canada. I’m thrilled I went and would love to visit again someday. (And not just for the sortilége.)
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See also
Off to Quebec
Quebec Winter Carnival: Vive Bonhomme!
C’est Bon, Montreal
TWT Travel Binder: Québec
