Sights in Québec
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Maison St-Gabriel
This magnificent farmhouse in Pointe St-Charles is one of the finest examples of traditional Québec architecture. The house was bought in 1668 by Marguerite Bourgeoys to house a religious order. Young women, called the Filles du Roy, who were sent from Paris to Montréal to find husbands also stayed here. The 17th-century roof of the two-story building is of particular interest for its intricate beam work, one of the few of its kind in North America. The museum has an excellent collection of artifacts going back to the 17th and 18th centuries, with unusual items including sinks made from black stone and a sophisticated water-disposal system. It all gives visitors a…
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Parc des Champs de Bataille
One of Québec City’s must-sees, this verdant, cliff-top park contains the Plains of Abraham. This was the stage for the infamous 1759 battle between British General James Wolfe and French General Montcalm that determined the fate of the North American continent. The park, named for Abraham Martin, a Frenchman who was one of the first farmers to settle in the area, is packed with sites, old cannons, monuments and commemorative plaques. It also has a fine multimedia history museum and several impressive fortification towers (one with a small military museum inside). The park is also a draw for locals, who come for outdoor activities such as running, in-line skating and,…
reviewed
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Château Dufresne
Brothers Oscar and Marius Dufresne commissioned this beautiful beaux-arts mansion, along the lines of the Versailles Palace in France, in 1916 and moved in with their families – Oscar on one side and Marius on the other. The interiors are stunning – tiled marble floors, coffered ceilings in Italian Renaissance style, stained-glass windows –and are open for the public to explore. Italian artist Guido Nincheri was in charge of interior decoration and painted many murals, including one of dainty nymphs in the Petit Salon. Marius’ side of the building is furnished in a more masculine style, with a smoking room fitted to look like a Turkish lounge with hookah pipes. The…
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Château Ramezay
A home of French governors in the early 18th century, this mansion is one of the finest examples from the ancien régime. It was built for the 11th governor, Claude de Ramezay, and includes 15 interconnecting rooms with a ballroom of mirrors and mahogany galore. Ramezay went broke trying to maintain it. American generals used it as a headquarters during the revolution, and Benjamin Franklin stayed here attempting (and failing) to convince the Canadians to join the cause. In 1903 turrets were added to give the ‘château’ its fanciful French look. The building is a repository of Québec history with a collection of 20,000 objects, including valuable Canadian art and furniture.…
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En Prison
Leaving from Musée Québécois de Culture Populaire are the highly recommended 90-minute tours of the former Trois-Rivières prison, En Prison (Tel: 819-372-0406; www.enprison.com; 200 Rue Laviolette; adult/child/student $9/5/7; first tour 10am, last tour 4:45pm Jun-Aug).
When it closed in 1986 it was the oldest continually in-use jail in Canada. The tours are led by former convicts – perhaps the only job in Canada where a criminal record is a prerequisite. The tours cover not only the history of this particular prison but life in Canada’s prisons in general. It’s fascinating but at times rather disturbing stuff, and guides try to lighten things up a bit by throwing in a…
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Quai Alexandra & Around
This eastern-most pier in the port is home to the Iberville Passenger Terminal, the dock for cruise ships that ply the St Lawrence River as far as the Magdalen Islands out in the Gulf of St Lawrence.
Nearby the Parc des Écluses (Park of Locks) holds exhibitions of landscape architecture, shows and concerts. A bicycle path starts here and runs south-east along the pretty Canal de Lachine.
The abandoned 17-story-tall concrete silo on the south side of the locks is the last big relic of Montréal’s heyday as a grain port. On the promenade just west of Café des Éclusiers is the Silo Phone, a set of speakers and microphones hooked up to the grain silo across the locks.…
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Onhoüa Chetek8e
This Huron aboriginal reserve is only about 20 minutes west of Québec City (you’ll know you’re there when you start seeing the bilingual Huron/French traffic signs). The major attraction here is the Onhoúa Chetek8e, a reconstructed Huron village (the ‘letter’ 8 in Huron is pronounced ‘oua’ like the ‘wh’ in ‘what’). The guides are excellent (one is even a former land-claims negotiator) and take you round the village explaining Huron history, culture and daily life. It may be artificial, but visitors love this place and children go wild for the tipi, canoes and bow-and-arrow range. Several guides speak English but call ahead to make sure they aren’t already assigned…
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Quai Jacques-Cartier
This pier is the anchor of the Old Port area, home to restaurants, an open-air stage and a handicraft center. Every year the port stages a number of temporary exhibits, shows and events.
Tours of the port area also depart from here, and a ferry goes to Parc Jean-Drapeau. The ferry can also stop at Parc de la Cité-du-Havre, where there’s a restaurant and picnic tables.
Just east of Quai Jacques-Cartier is the Parc du Bassin Bonsecours, a grassy expanse enclosed by a waterway and criss-crossed with footbridges. In summer you can rent paddleboats ($6.50 per half-hour) or remote-control model sailboats; in winter the ice-skaters take over.
There’s a café at the Pavilion…
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Cosmodôme
You (or your kids) can experience the thrill of space flight in this interactive museum of space and new technologies. Exhibits focus on the solar system, satellite communications, teledetection and space travel, and there are mock-ups of rockets, the space shuttle Endeavor and planets. A multimedia show, Reach for the Stars, simulates space travel with special effects on a 360-degree screen. The center also runs space camps for one to five days for kids aged nine and up in a sort of mini-NASA training. The center is a 25-minute drive north of downtown Montréal. It’s a bit of a push by public transportation, but you can take the metro to Henri-Bourassa station and then…
reviewed
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Église St Michel
This Byzantine-style church dominates the corner of Rue St-Urbain and Rue St-Viateur. Its dome and soaring turret make it one of the more unique examples of church architecture in Montréal. Completed in 1915, St Michel served a mostly Irish community up through the 1960s (when it was known as ‘St Mike’s’ and was the largest English-speaking parish in Montréal). Intriguing elements include the massive dome with a depiction of St Michael vanquishing the seven-headed serpent (representing the seven deadly sins), figures of downward-descending angels (representing the fallen angels cast into hell) painted on the pendentives, and the shamrocks hidden in the design elements.…
reviewed
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Carré St-Louis
This lovely green space with a three-tiered fountain is flanked by beautiful rows of Second Empire homes. In the 19th century a reservoir here was filled, and a neighborhood emerged for well-to-do French families. Artists and poets gathered in the area back then, and creative types like filmmakers and fashion designers now occupy houses in the streets nearby. The café, which opens in the summer, is a good spot for a pick-me-up, with occasional musicians creating the soundtrack for the square. Nearby students and local residents take in precious rays, while others linger puffing on strange smokes. Carré St-Louis feeds west into Rue Prince-Arthur, a former slice of 1960s…
reviewed
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Musée de L’amérique Française
On the grounds of the Séminaire de Québec (the Québec Seminary), this excellent museum is purported to be Canada’s oldest. (The Musée Scientifique du Séminaire de Québec opened here in 1806.) The museum that stands here today has brilliantly atmospheric exhibits on life in the seminary during the colonial era as well as religious artifacts and temporary exhibitions on subjects like endangered species. The priests from the Québec Seminary were avid travelers and collectors and there are some magnificent displays of the scientific objects they brought back with them from Europe, such as old Italian astronomical equipment. The exhibits are capped off by a wonderful short…
reviewed
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Place Jacques-Cartier
The liveliest spot in Old Montréal, this gently inclined square hums with performance artists, street musicians and the animated chatter from terrace restaurants linings its borders. A public market was set up here after a château burned down in 1803. At its top end stands the Colonne Nelson, a monument erected to Admiral Nelson after his defeat of Napoleon’s fleet at Trafalgar. The great likeness is now a fiberglass replica. Nelson’s presence is a thorn in the side of many French Quebecers, and there have been many attempts to have it removed (the last was by mayor Pierre Bourque in 1998). Francophones later installed a statue of an obscure French admiral, Jean…
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Square Dorchester
This leafy expanse in the heart of downtown was known until 1988 as Dominion Square, a reminder of Canada’s founding in 1867. A Catholic cemetery was here until 1870 and bodies still lie beneath the grass. Events of all kinds have taken place here over the years – fashion shows, political rallies and royal visits. The square still exudes the might of the British Empire, with statues of Boer-War booster Lord Strathcona, Queen Victoria and poet Robert Burns, plus Wilfrid Laurier, Canada’s first francophone prime minister, who faces off a statue of John A Macdonald, the first anglophone prime minister, in Place du Canada across Blvd René-Lévesque. The city’s main…
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Basilique-Cathédrale Notre-Dame-de-Québec
This basilica got its start as a small church in 1647. In the ensuing years, the churches built here suffered everything from frequent fires to battle damage, especially during fighting between British and French armies in 1759. But no matter what, the church was rebuilt and repaired. Each replacement was bigger than the last until it reached the size you see today – a structure completed in 1925. The interior is appropriately grandiose, though most of the basilica’s treasures didn’t survive the 1922 fire that left behind only the walls and foundations. To have a look at the crypt, you’ll have to sign on to a guided tour. Everyone from governors of New France to…
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En Prison
Unquestionably the most intriguing museum is En Prison, an exhibit housed in an 1822 prison that remained open for business until 1986. Ex-cons bring the harsh realities of the lock-up vividly to life during 90-minute tours that include a stop at dark and dank underground cells known as 'the pit.' The prison exhibit is affiliated with the adjacent Musée Québécois de Culture Populaire, which has a renowned regional folk art collection and changing exhibits, often with a quirky pop culture bent.
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Fur Trade in Lachine National Historic Site
This 1803 stone depot is now an engaging little museum telling the story of the fur trade in Canada. The Hudson Bay Company made Lachine the hub of its fur-tradingoperations because the rapids made further navigation impossible. Visitors can view the furs and old trappers’ gear, and costumed interpreters show how the bales and canoes were schlepped by native trappers. A little office display near the Fur Trade site relates the history of the Canal de Lachine, and guided tours are conducted along the canal on request. This museum has a gorgeous little location, kissing Lac St-Louis, making it lovely to wander the side streets, particularly behind the Collège Ste-Anne…
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Musée de la Civilisation
The Museum of Civilization wows you even before you’ve visited the exhibitions. It is a fascinating mix of modern design that incorporates pre-existing buildings with contemporary architecture. The permanent exhibits, like the one on the cultures of Québec’s Aboriginals and the one titled ‘People of Québec: Then and Now, ’ are unique and well worth seeing. Many of the exhibits include clever interactive elements. The changing shows are also outstanding and this is really the only museum in town that regularly focuses on contemporary issues and culture. This is a big place with lots to see, so you should concentrate on only one or two exhibitions if you’re not planning to…
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Hôtel de Ville
Montréal’s handsome City Hall was built between 1872 and 1878. Far from being a humdrum administrative center, it’s actually steeped in local lore. Most famously, it’s where French leader Charles de Gaulle took to the balcony in 1967 and yelled to the crowds outside ‘Vive le Québec libre!’ (‘Long live a free Québec!’) Those four words fueled the fires of Québécois separatism and strained relations with Ottawa for years. Peer into the Great Hall of Honor for some scenes of rural Québec and busts of Jacques Viger, the first French-speaking mayor (1833–36), and Peter McGill, the first English-speaking mayor (1840–42).
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Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours
Known as the Sailors’ Church, this enchanting chapel derives its name from the sailors who left behind votive lamps in the shapes of ships in thanksgiving for safe passage. The restored interior has stained-glass windows and paintings depicting key moments in the life of the Virgin Mary (for whom Montréal – aka Ville-Marie – was originally named). The attached Musée Marguerite-Bourgeoys relates the story of Montréal’s first teacher and the founder of the Congregation of Notre-Dame order of nuns. The crypt has artifacts dating back 2000 years and foundations of the original chapel from 1773. The observation tower offers grand views of the Old Port.
reviewed
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Parc de la Chute Montmorency
This waterfall is right by the Taschereau Bridge on the way to Île d’Orléans and is worth a stop if you’re in the area. It’s 83m high, topping Niagara Falls by about 30m, though it’s not nearly as wide. What’s cool is walking over the falls on the suspension bridge to see (and hear) them thunder down below. The park is free but parking ($10 per car) and the cable car (adult/child $11/6) can add up over the average one-hour visit. You can opt to walk the circuit instead of taking the cable car up. This is an interesting stop even in winter. When the spray from the falls freezes, it creates a 30m-high toboggan hill. The falls are about 12km from Québec City.
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Musée McCord
With hardly an inch to spare in its cramped but welcoming galleries, the McCord Museum of Canadian History houses nearly one million artifacts and documents illustrating Canada’s social, cultural and archaeological history from the 18th century to present day. The eclectic collection has large sections on Canada’s earliest European settlement and the history of Québec’s indigenous people; other display highlights include embroidered gowns, toys, prints and First Nations’ works. The 2nd-floor gallery neatly encapsulates French-Canadian history in Québec. There’s also a gift shop and an inviting café. In summer it’s also open Monday.
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Église Madonna della Difesa
Our Lady of Protection Church was built in 1919 according to the drawings of Florence-born Guido Nincheri (1885–1973), who spent the next two decades working on the Roman-Byzantine structure. The artist painted the church’s remarkable frescoes, including one of Mussolini on horseback with a bevy of generals in the background. The work honored the formal recognition by Rome of the pope’s sovereignty over Vatican City in 1929 and was unveiled a few years later as Hitler came to power. During WWII, Nincheri and others who had worked on the building were interned by the Canadian authorities. The fresco, still controversial, can be viewed above the high marble altar.
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Mt Stephen Club
The Mt Stephen Club, dating from 1880, was an exclusive businessmen’s club named for the first president of the Canadian Pacific Railway. The 15 rooms of this Renaissance-style mansion have been completely renovated by a private foundation and are rich with quality materials and skillful artistry, including a splendid mahogany staircase, marble mantelpieces and rather swanky furnishings. It’s still one of the swishest private clubs in town. The public can take it all in on weekends, during a seven-course Saturday-evening feast ($70) or a Sunday-morning brunch ($45); both feature live music. Free guided tours are included with Sunday brunch. Reservations and proper attire…
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Louis S St-Laurent Heritage House
Louis St-Laurent (1882-1973) was Canada's prime minister from 1948 to 1957. He spent most of his life in Québec City at this address and the house is 'alive' with his life story. Literally. Each room is hooked up to motion detectors - just walk in and prepare to have family photos start talking to you or phones ring with urgent messages for you to pass on to Mr Laurent. It's all brilliantly done; interactive history at its best.
Fluently bilingual due to his Irish mother and Québécois father, he was one of Canada's most distinguished leaders. Under his watch, Newfoundland joined Canada as its 10th province and important social benefits were established for all…
reviewed