Spread over Cap Diamant and the
banks of the St Lawrence,
QUEBEC
CITY is Canada's most
beautifully located and most
historic city. Vieux-Quebec,
surrounded by solid fortifications,
is the only walled city in North
America, a fact that prompted UNESCO
to classify it as a World Heritage
Site in 1985. In both parts of the
Old City - Haute and Basse - the
winding cobbled streets are flanked
by seventeenth- and
eighteenth-century stone houses and
churches, graceful parks and
squares, and countless monuments.
Although some districts have been
painstakingly restored to give
tourists as seductive an
introduction to Quebec as possible,
this is an authentically and
profoundly French city: 95 percent
of its 600,000 population are
French-speaking, and it is often
difficult to remember which
continent you are in as you tuck
into a croissant and a steaming bowl
of coffee in a Parisian-style café.
Moreover, despite the fact that the
city's symbol is a hotel, the
Château
Frontenac , the government
remains the main employee, not
tourism, and some of the more
impressive buildings are
government-run and off-limits.
Arriving from Montreal you're
immediately struck by the
differences between the province's
two main cities. Whilst Montreal is
international, dynamic and
forward-thinking, Quebec City is
more than a shade provincial, often
seeming too bound up with its
religious and military past - a
residue of the days when the city
was the bastion of the Catholic
Church in Canada. On the other hand,
the Church can claim much of the
credit for the creation and
preservation of the finest
buildings, from the quaint Église
Notre Dame-des-Victoires to the Basilique
Notre Dame de Quebec and the
vast Seminary . In contrast,
the austere defensive structures,
dominated by the massive Citadelle
, reveal the military pedigree of a
city dubbed by Churchill as the
"Gibraltar of North
America", while the battlefield
of the Plains of Abraham is
now a national historic park. Of the
city's rash of museums, two are
essential visits - the modern Musée
de la Civilisation , in Vieux-Quebec,
expertly presenting all aspects of
French-Canadian society, and the Musée
du Quebec , in the Haute-Ville,
west of Vieux-Quebec, which has the
finest art collection in the
province.
Outside the city limits, the town
of Lévis and the Huron
reservation, Wendake , make
worthwhile excursions, whilst the
churches and farmland of the Côte-de-Beaupré
and the Île d'Orléans hark
back to the days of the seigneurs
and habitants . The gigantic Basilique
de Ste-Anne-de-Beaupré ,
attracting millions of pilgrims
annually, is one of the most
impressive sights in Quebec, and for
equally absorbing natural sights
there are the spectacular waterfalls
at Montmorency and Sept-Chutes
, and the wildlife reserve in the Laurentians.
