Where to go in Quebec City: Old Quebec [ Day 1 ]

mai kutsuna
May 13, 2020
4 min read

Updated: May 28, 2020

We left Montreal at around 7am as we hopped on the Orleans Express bus to Quebec City. The round trip costs us $76 per person. We got off at Saint Foy station as our Airbnb was closer to the more major bus terminal near Quebec City; La Gare Palais, which explained why no one really got off with us. To get information about the public bus ,we went to the information counter. This was when I was confronted by the fact that this was Quebec City and not Montreal, where the French > English culture was much strongly in place.Therefore, when I spoke in English the woman gave me a stern look and I quickly realized that I was wrong to assume she would speak English for me. With my limited French, and mostly thanks to my friend who took speak French almost fluently, we made our way to our Airbnb.

Later, we head to get lunch. Recommended by the Airbnb caretaker, we head to Avenue Cartier. The weather was chilly but sunny, but a type of sunny that still require our winter coat. Avenue Cartier resembled Rue Saint-Denis in Montreal as restaurants filled each side of the street. After lunch, we head to Old Quebec. You will easily know when you get there, as horse carriages scuttle by and a huge stoned gate welcome you. The towns-cape resembled the streets near Old Port in Montreal, except… more deeply European. As we walked through the colorful street, we head to the Chateau Frontenac. This historic Châteauesque-style hotel opened in 1893 still running as a hotel is probably one of the greatest touristic spots in Quebec City. It was immense and beautiful. As it is located on an elevated land, we were also able to overlook the panorama of Saint Lawrence River. Mostly frozen when we went, so perhaps a better view can be seen during the summer. After taking bunch of photos, we walked around Terrace Dufferin. Unlike what the name might suggest, it is merely an area that wraps around the hotel and not really a “terrace” in my opinion. We came across children enjoying a toboggan slide, one that it connected to a restaurant and is open only during the winter season. Perhaps it could be a fun experience for those who visit the area.

We headed down the “terrace” to the Quartier Petit Champlain after that. There is a funicular/tramway, but we took the stairs to save us $3.50 … it’s not a long way down so I recommend doing so too. Quartier Petit Champlain is a narrow street filled with cute little shops and you can easily find them as you descend from the terrace. Again, it is very European looking and you could easily imagine the place looking magical at night, or even better in Christmas. We bought some caramel popcorn at Mary’s Popcorn Shop and our first maple taffy from a small shop just by the side of the street. The maple taffys are made just by freezing maple syrup on snow/ice and it tastes what you might expect…Maple! Am I Canadian yet? We noticed that there were ice carvings by each shop, and we realized that it must be left from Winter Carnival that ended in February. The Winter Carnival is a popular event in Quebec City and so definitely a must visit. We also came across several fireplace areas with the benches and slides made of ice. There were wall murals too, except they had a different style from the ones you see in Montreal; more classical and painting like. (After the trip, I found out that we had missed the largest mural located by Rue Notre-Dame. Don’t miss it!)

After we made it all the way down, instead of making the most obvious decision to head back, we kept walking and so we eventually found ourselves in the middle of nowhere. We were walking by a single road just next to the river, with the cliff soaring up on our right side. Google maps told us that we had to keep walking until we could find our way up and it was truly a long walk. We then finally stumbled upon a way up; a long staircase. Turns out it was the longest staircase in Quebec City with 395 steps in total!! We had no choice but to take them, and to be honest, it was a fun challenge. Out of breath, we made to the top (I cant believe the people that were training by going up and down!) and we found ourselves at the Plaine D’Abraham. It is a historical area where the Battle of the Plains of Abraham or Battle of Quebec took place between the British and French armies in 1759. Now, the area was just a field, all covered in snow when we were there. We rested there, enjoying the sunset and head home.