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Québec
– Capital City since 1608
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Explore 400 years of Old
Québec’s
history, culture and architecture
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0100
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ST. LAWRENCE RIVER
The river and watershed
that defined historical Canada.
Flowing from the Great Lakes, the 2300-mile /
3700-km St. Lawrence Seaway extends from Duluth Minnesota to the Atlantic
coast of Nova Scotia. This watershed was known as “Kanata” by
local Indigenous and early French settlers, more than 300 years before modern
Canada expanded to the Pacific coast in the wake of the American Civil War.

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0200
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MUSÉE DES BEAUX-ARTS DU QUÉBEC (Fine Arts Museum of
Québec)
Collections of New France art, topographical
painters, Inuit, Modern art, etc.

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0300
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OBSERVATOIRE DE LA CAPITALE
(Québec City Observatory)
Located at the 31st floor of the Marie-Guyart building, admire the Historic District of Old
Québec and its fortifications from its highest point.

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0400
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PLAINE
D’ABRAHAM
(Plains
of Abraham – Battlefields Park)
Most iconic battlefield of the French and Indian
War. French were defeated and soon left North America.
One of Canada’s most important historical parks and one of the
most prestigious city parks.
On this site, during the French and Indian War, French troops lost
the 1759 iconic battle that changed the fate of the continent. All North
America’s French territories will be then ceded to England through the
1763 Treaty of Paris.
Many French-speaking Canadians remained and now form 75% of the
population of the Province of Québec, for up to 14 generations.

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0500
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MUSÉE DES
PLAINES D’ABRAHAM (Plains of Abraham Museum)
Different exhibitions, the show Battles and guided tours are available.

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0600
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GRANDE ALLÉE
Variety of restaurants and bars along the
Battlefield Park.
Name given to St-Louis street outside the
Fortifications. Literally, Grande Allée means Broad Way.
What to do!

History

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0700
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HÔTEL DU PARLEMENT – ASSEMBLÉE NATIONALE DU
QUÉBEC
(Province
of Québec’s Legislature Building)
Even though Montreal is the Province’s
largest city, Québec City has forever been its Capital City.
Discover the National Assembly of the Province of
Québec and the British parliamentary system in the only
French-speaking Province of Canada. Self-guided and free guided tours.

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0800
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CITADELLE DE
QUÉBEC
Many military defense works like the Citadelle were built in British Canada after the War of
1812.
Active military base and home of the Royal 22nd
Regiment, 1st French-speaking troops of the Canadian Forces.
Built in the wake of the War of 1812, as the
Halifax Citadel, Fort Henry in Kingston Ontario and the Rideau Canal in
Ottawa. These defensive and strategic works have finally never been used in
war times.

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0900
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FRENCH RAMPART OF
QUÉBEC CITY’S FORTIFICATIONS
The fortifications of Québec were built
from early French Canada until the 1871 Treaty of Washington.
The French rampart was built in the years before
the iconic 1759 Plains of Abraham Battle. This wall preserved its original
height (or so) and is made of “courtines” (straight walls) and “bastions” (parts of walls that stick out), and is located between the
northern and southern cliffs of Québec’s promontory.
Québec’s Fortifications are of the
“Vauban” type, named after Louis XIV’s military engineer
who widely used this configuration.
The last forts – 3 wide bastions - were
built across the St.Lawrence River in Lévis, to stop the potential invaders from the
USA, a major threat for the Canadians in the wake of the Civil War.
Parks Canada in Québec

Parks Canada in Lévis

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1000
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PIERRE DUGUA-DE
MONS TERRACE
After founding Acadia in 1604, Dugua financed the Champlain’s expedition to
Québec in 1608.
Outstanding view
of the « narrowing of the river » (kebek in algonquian
language), the Port area and South-Shore of Québec (Lévis) as well as the bridge and western tip of
Ile d’Orléans.
Dugua-De
Mons is the Father of Acadia that he founded in 1604. Dugua’s
bust found here is a replica of the original statue located in Annapolis
Royal Nova Scotia, formerly Port-Royal, capital of historic Acadia.
Lieutenant-Governor of New France in 1608, Dugua
commissioned Champlain to settle a fur trade post in Québec, and thus,
is now recognized as the co-founder of Québec City, Canada’s
first permanent settlement.
Terrace

Fort St. Anne in Acadia

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1100
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CAP DIAMANT (Cape Diamond)
“The impression made upon the visitor by this Gibraltar of
America…” (Charles
Dickens, American Notes, 1842)
Name given to the eastern
cliff (river side) of the promontory of Québec City, atop of which
stands the iconic hotel Chateau Frontenac (see 14) and
Citadelle de Québec (see 8). The opposite western cliff – which is not
Cape Diamond anymore - faces the Old Port district in Lower Town (le Vieux-Port) and the Laurentian
mountains in the background.
The name originates from the diamonds Jacques Cartier – the
official European discoverer of Canada – found here. Unfortunately,
these “fake diamonds” were only quartz. Cartier eventually fell
in disgrace in the 1800s for 3 main reasons: these fake diamonds, the
forcible abduction of “Indians” at the end of his 1st voyage to
Canada (1534) and because English Canadians would then thought John Cabot was
the actual European discoverer of Canada because of his 1497 travel along the
Newfoundland coast.
Cap Diamant (French only)

Dickens’
travel to USA and Canada, including Quebec City

Jacques Cartier’s 1535-1536 wintering site

Jacques Cartier’s 1541-1542 travel to Canada
(French only)

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1200
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TERRASSE DUFFERIN (Dufferin Terrace)
Top view on the river and the area in the vicinity of the
Château Frontenac. Historic sites showcasing Canada from early 1600s to
late 1800s.
Atop Cape Diamond, nearby Chateau Frontenac, this
is one of the preferred point of view on the St. Lawrence River below.
Inaugurated 12 years after modern Canada was born in 1867, here we find many
Canadian symbols to celebrate the “founding people of Canada”,
along with some Royal family members of that period (Victoria, Louise, Lorne,
Dufferin), a prestigious French Governor (Frontenac) and an important
Catholic Archbishop (Plessis). The same symbols and figures can be seen
across the whole country from Victoria BC to Halifax Nova Scotia.
Terrace Dufferin

Fort
and Chateau St. Louis historic site under terrace

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1300
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WOLFE-MONTCALM MONUMENT
Plains of Abraham Battle’s victorious and defeated generals
share a common memorial erected in the spirit of reconciliation during unrest
in Lower and Upper Canada!
Both James Wolfe and Louis-Joseph de Montcalm
– the British and French commanders during the Siege of Québec
in 1759 – were mortally wounded during the 20-minute battle that took place
on September 13. Common fate, common fame and common memorial!
When the monument was inaugurated in 1829, French
Canadians and American Loyalists in the British colonies of Lower and Upper
Canada respectively were fighting for democracy as their elected
assemblies’ decisions could be vetoed by the appointed council or
governor. Responsible government was granted to Canadians only in 1848 after
the Papineau-McKenzie Rebellions.
Parks Canada

War Memorial

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1400
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CHATEAU FRONTENAC – FAIRMONT HOTEL
Best Québec City’s symbol of Canada “From Sea to
Sea”, it was built by the railroad company that united Canada!
This 1893 “Castle of the North”
– a top Canadian symbol - is Québec City’s most famous
landmark. Third prestigious CPR hotel built along the then-new railroad from
Vancouver to Quebec City, after Vancouver Hotel in 1885 and Banff Springs in
1888.
Hotel Frontenac’s “Medieval
Chateau-style” architecture was inspired by the 1875 Dufferin
Preservation Plan of Québec City – Quebec Improvements - where
walls were partially lowered, Dufferin Terrace enlarged and military gates
rebuilt with a medieval touch, more than a decade before the Frontenac was
built. The last “similar” hotel built along the Canadian Pacific
railroad is the 1908 Empress situated in Victoria, British Columbia, the home
of the Empress Cruiseship Line also owned by the
Canadian Pacific Railway.
Parks Canada

Dufferin’s
1875 Preservation Plan: Quebec Improvements

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1500
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CHAMPLAIN MONUMENT
Father of New France and founder of Québec City, Champlain was
also a cartographer, diplomat and business man!
This monument was erected a decade before
Québec City’s 300th anniversary in 1908. Skilled sailor,
Champlain crossed the Atlantic 27 times to realize his dream of a permanent
French presence in North America. He died on Christmas Day in 1635 in nearby
Fort St-Louis (see 12).
Champlain’s burial site is still unknown to this day despite several
attempts to locate it from the 1800s.
From his first travel into the St. Lawrence valley
in 1603 – where he met with First Nations and created strategic
alliances – to his death, Champlain mapped the coast of New England and
the St. Lawrence River watershed, from Cape Cod to the Great Lakes area. His
contribution to the mapping of historical Canada and Acadia is remarkable, as
well as his skills to create durable alliances between the French and Native
Americans that lasted up to the fall of New France.
Monument

History

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1600
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PLACE D’ARMES (Armoury Square)
Central hub of Upper Town laid out around 1640. The 3 streets
starting from Place d’Armes lead to the 3 gates
of the French rampart in a radial pattern.
Place d’Armes
dates from the French period of Canada and has witnessed Canada’s major
political changes. Today, one can observe around Place d’Armes
architecture styles of the 3 periods of Canadian history. Discover the 1732
Neoclassical Berthelot House (corner
Ste-Anne and du Trésor), the 1804 Palladian Holy Trinity Cathedral (see 17) and the 1893 Chateau-style hotel Frontenac (see 14), memories of the French, British and Canadian periods
respectively.
The neo-baroque fountain in its center recalls the
arrival of the first French Catholic missionaries to Canada in 1615: the
Recollects were a French Franciscans suborder. Other male and female Catholic
orders followed within 25 years: the Jesuits in 1625, the Ursulines
and Augustinians in 1639 (see 18).
Place d’Armes

Maison Berthelot
(French only)

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1700
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HOLY TRINITY – ANGLICAN CATHEDRAL
Landmark of British Québec City. Built 20 years after the U.S.
Independence that made Québec the new Capital City of British North America.
Built around Place d’Armes
(see 16) on a site originally owned by the first French Catholic
religious order in Canada, the Recollects. The British used the
Recollects’ Church for their own worship until a fire destroyed the
building at the end of the 18th century.
The Palladian architecture of 1803 Holy Trinity
church is the first British architectural style that marked Québec
City. Other Palladian buildings were erected during the first decades of the
19th century, such as the St. Andrew’s Presbyterian Church,
the Morrin Centre (see 20), etc… The Anglican Church of Old Québec is
still very dynamic and offers services in English… and French.

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1800
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MONASTÈRE DES URSULINES
(Ursuline Monastery)
First school for girls in North America, operating since 1639. The
Quebec City Ursulines were the first female
missionaries to North America. The Ursuline Sisters also settled in New
Orleans in 1727, becoming then the first nuns in the USA. The Québec
City Ursulines is within the top 5 French historic
institutions across Canada.
They operate a museum about the Catholic
education they provided until the end of the 1900s, the traditional art of
gilding and embroidery they imported from France in the 1600s and the
monastic life of the Ursuline order until Vatican II.
In their chapel open to the public, you can see
the only authentic church interior dating from the French rule of Canada.
Also, you discover original paintings confiscated by the French
Revolutionaries – the Desjardins Collection - and brought to
Québec City around 1820, a concrete and artistic side effect of the
French Revolution on Canada.
The Ursuline and Augustinian nuns both arrived in
Canada in 1639. The latter inaugurated the first hospital in North America,
now operated as an oncology centre in Old Québec. First apothecaries
in Canada, the Augustinians now operate a top-rated wellness centre that
includes a museum about their works and the medical science of the
1600s.
Ursulines

Augustinians

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1900
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ÉDIFICE PRICE (Price Building)
Inaugurated on October 29, 1929 – the Black Tuesday at the New
York Stock Exchange - this building recalls the effect of the Great Depression
on Canada.
Now owned by the Government of Québec, it was built by the 4th
generation of the Price family as headquarter for their paper mills and
sawmills empire. The Prices became
managers of the company they had created after going bankrupt in the early
1930s.
The 5th generation rebuilt their
business in tourism from 1965 when Anthony Price opened the Musée
du Fort near Place d’Armes.
The family also owns the Chic Shack (Gourmet hamburgers restaurant) and Auberge Saint-Antoine (only Relais & Chateaux hotel in
Quebec City area, and regularly nominated as hotel #1 in Canada by travel
magazines). The hotel restaurant – the Muffy, Anthony’s wife
nickname – also ranks frequently within the top 5 restaurants in
Canada.
Price Building

Musée du
Fort

Chic Shack

Auberge
Saint-Antoine

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2000
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MORRIN CENTRE AND ST. ANDREW’S PRESBYTERIAN
CHURCH
The Scots arrived in Canada through the British Conquest. The best
landmarks of Scottish Quebec City are found here!
Details to come shortly.
Morrin Centre

St. Andrew’s Church

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2100
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QUARTIER PETIT-CHAMPLAIN (Petit-Champlain
District)
Details to come shortly.
Business Corporation

What
to see

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2200
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NOTRE-DAME-DE-QUÉBEC CATHEDRAL
Details to come shortly.
Opening Hours

Basilica-Cathedral

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2300
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PLACE DE L’HÔTEL-DE-VILLE (CITY
HALL SQUARE)
Details to come shortly.

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2400
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HÔTEL-DE-VILLE (CITY
HALL)
Details to come shortly.

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2500
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NOTRE-DAME-DES-VICTOIRES CHURCH
Details to come shortly.

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2600
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PLACE ROYALE (Royal Square)
Details to come shortly.

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2700
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CÔTE DE LA MONTAGNE
(Mountain Hill)
Details to come shortly.
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2800
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PARC MONTMORENCY (Montmorency Park)
Details to come shortly.

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2900
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SÉMINAIRE DE QUÉBEC (Seminary of Québec)
Details to come shortly.
Heritage

School
of Architecture

Seminary
Corporation (French only)

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3000
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QUARTIER LATIN (Latin Quarter)
Details to come shortly.

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3100
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MUSÉE DE LA CIVILISATION
Details to come shortly.

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3200
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RUE DES REMPARTS
Details to come shortly.
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