Battlegrounds and beluga - Office du tourisme de Québec

12 HOLIDAYS FOR SENIORS
THE WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN, SEPTEMBER 13-14, 2014
www.theaustralian.com.au/travel
THE PERFECT 10 QUEBEC
Battlegrounds
and beluga
The eclectic French Canadian city offers
history aplenty and a devotion to fine cuisine
GAVIN BELL
STEP BACK IN TIME
THE historic heart of Old Quebec is a warren of
lively streets and ancient fortifications evoking
its tumultuous past as a strategic prize in the struggle between England and France for supremacy in North
America. The lower town below the city walls is the oldest
section, where the explorer Samuel de Champlain founded the city in 1608. The site of his fur trading post is dominated by the Place Royale, a cobbled square surrounded
by stone houses with steeply sloping roofs in 18th-century Norman style. A museum on the square has an interesting large-scale model of the city in the 17th century.
Look out for an impressive trompe-l’oeil fresco on a nearby building, depicting the city’s history from de Champlain to modern-day hockey players.
More: quebecregion.com/en.
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HEAD FOR THE HEIGHTS
A SWATH of greenery high above the St Lawrence River saw the decisive battle in which
General Wolfe led the Brits to victory over the
French in 1759. The Parc des Champs-de-Bataille (Battlefields Park) is now a peaceful oasis of hills, trees and gardens bordering Old Quebec popular with walkers and
cyclists. A multimedia exhibition in a Discovery Pavilion
recounts the battles and political wheeling and dealing
that led to the birth of modern Canada. Since then the
park has seen hangings, duels, prostitutes, Buffalo Bill’s
Wild West Show, and a landing by aviator Charles Lindbergh. At the time of writing it was preparing for the arrival of Lady Gaga. More: ccbn-nbc.gc.ca/en.
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ADMIRE THE VIEWS
WHEN they weren’t repelling invaders, soldiers manning the clifftop Citadelle in the Parc
des Champs-de-Bataille could enjoy panoramic
views to the distant Appalachian Mountains. From the
fort with its military museum, a boardwalk along
the highest cliffs of Cap
Diamant (Cape Diamond) offers changing
perspectives of the city
and the river. This bracing “Promenade des
Gouverneurs” leads to a
broad terrace ending at a
city landmark, the extravagant 19th-century
neo-renaissance Chateau Frontenac Hotel
with its copper roofs and
more than 600 guestrooms graced in the past
by the Queen, Charles de
Gaulle and Alfred Hitchcock. It was here that
LUC-ANTOINE COUTURIER
Franklin D Roosevelt
and Winston Churchill
met in the 1940s to plot the defeats of Nazi Germany and
Japan. More: fairmont.com/frontenac-quebec.
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Chateau Frontenac
and the city’s
fortifications
MEET THE LOCALS
THE Rue Saint-Jean is a main street lined with
shops, cafes and restaurants, but most visitors
venture no further along it than the Porte (Gate)
Saint-Jean in the old city walls. Carry on walking and you
will find locals hanging out in second-hand bookshops,
funky stores and bars where music drifts on to the street
until the early hours. It’s safe, relaxed and in summer it’s
warm. A few blocks north, the Saint-Roch Quarter used
to be a seedy working-class area until urban renewal
transformed the neighbourhood into a trendy district of
bars, boutiques and artists’ workshops. Be prepared to see
odd characters on its main artery, the Rue Saint-Joseph,
such as a young man cycling while playing a flute (with
both hands).
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SEBASTIEN LAROSE
EAT DRINK AND BE MERRY
AS the heart of French Canada, the city caters
to its tastebuds with an unswerving devotion to
French cuisine. Near the top of the gastronomic
league is Saint-Amour, an elegant establishment of three
classic dining rooms in the Rue Sainte-Ursule, one of
them an indoor garden with painted woodwork beneath
a 10m glass ceiling. The kitchen, presided over by JeanLuc Boulay, an award-winning French master chef,
prides itself on innovative cuisine that includes Arctic
char and beluga lentils with smoked sturgeon ragout. In
the Saint-Roch Quarter, the lively Le Cercle in the Rue
Saint-Joseph offers excellent fare and an eclectic range of
live music. More: saint-amour.com; le-cercle.ca.
YVES TESSIER
Clockwise from top: Quebec City;
thundering Chute Montmorency; the
rolling landscape of Ile d’Orleans
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ON YOUR BIKE — OR SKIS
JOIN the locals and make the most of the river
and the surrounding countryside by hiring a
bike and cycling on more than 400km of dedicated
off-road paths. Graded easy to moderate, urban riverside
trails vary in length from 6km to 50km. Further afield old
railway beds offer blissfully traffic-free rides amid forests,
lakes and historic rural communities. The Corridor du
Littoral along the St Lawrence is among the easiest and
most scenic. Maps are available from tourist offices and
cycle hire shops. Quebec is a city for all seasons — in winter cycle paths serve as cross-country skiing and snowshoe trails. More: gobiking.ca.
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SAIL AWAY
VIEW the city and its approaches from the
same vantage point as early French explorers
and British soldiers — from the deck of a ship, but
with considerably more modern comforts. The MV Louis
Jolliet, with open decks and glassed-in dining rooms, has
90-minute cruises from Cap Diamant downriver with
narrated commentaries on the sights and history of
North America’s only walled city. In summer the illuminated skyline by night provides an enchanting backdrop
for four-hour dinner and dance cruises, some of them coinciding with firework displays. In winter the river freezes
over — so there are icebreaking cruises.
More: croisieresaml.com/en.
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LOOK FOR THE WHITE LADY
THE most spectacular scene of Anglo-French
hostilities lies 15km from the city, a thundering
83m waterfall higher than Niagara Falls. The Chute
Montmorency is less impressive than Niagara, but a
cable car leads to bird’s eye views from a suspension
bridge over the edge of the falls. An adjacent manor
house, once a residence of Prince Edward Augustus, later
father of Queen Victoria, has a restaurant and gift shop.
Legend has it that a betrothed young woman leapt to her
death in the falls, wearing her wedding dress, after her fiance was killed in a skirmish with the English. She is said
to appear in the mists of spray.
More: sepaq.com/ct/pcm/en.
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ISLAND LIFE
OPPOSITE the Montmorency Falls a bridge
leads to the Ile d’Orleans, a rustic patchwork of
farms, vineyards, maple woods and hamlets of clapboard houses that seem to be vying with each other to be
the prettiest. Most of the island is a living Ideal Home Exhibition. Hire a car for the day and drive clockwise from
the bridge through farmland producing award-winning
wines, cheeses, cider and maple syrup. Taste Donald
Bouchard’s splendid 1535 Reserve at his historic home in
the Ile de Bacchus vineyard, and maple syrup straight
from the trees at Cabane a Sucre (sugar shack). The road
on the far side of the island passes through a string of picturesque communities with appealing inns, restaurants
and art galleries. Native Indians called it the “Isle of Sorcerers”, and it is still magic.
More: tourisme.iledorleans.com/en.
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BEST BEDS
BANK ON COMFORT
RUE Saint-Pierre in the Old Port district was
once the Wall Street of Quebec, with grand
stone buildings housing banks and insurance and legal
firms. Several have been transformed into luxury boutique hotels, notably Le Germain-Dominion, below,
which offers stylish and comfortable accommodation in
an amalgam of a bank and the offices of the Dominion
Fish and Fruit Ltd. A blend of classic Chicago-style architecture and contemporary design, it has a relaxed and
homely ambience fostered by friendly and helpful staff.
There is no restaurant, but there is bar service in the
lounge and a pleasant terrace for breakfast. It’s ideally
situated for the cafes, restaurants and art galleries of the
lower town, as well as the antique and curio shops of Rue
Saint-Paul. More: germaindominion.com/en.
• canada.travel
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