Natalie Lamb's Blog: Natalie Lamb and the travel post: Québec City, Québec

I was fortunate enough to obtain a grant to attend a conference in Toronto, Canada. Instead of booking direct flights and a hotel, I used that same amount of money (and actually, quite a bit less) to go on a little overland East Canada road trip. I travelled Halifax to Québec City to Montréal to Ottawa to Toronto to Halifax. I have one blog post for each location, plus one about the road trip experience itself.

A Québec City adventure

Québec City was stop number two for me in Canada. I arrived into Gare du Palais and was swiftly greeted by a bit of a hike to reach my accommodation! The hills here are not playing around!

The overall feeling or vibe in Québec City was very Parisian, very European. The architecture was beautiful. Fairmont Le Château Frontenac, which is the giant castle in every picture of the city that you see, is like a real life fairy castle. There were cobbled streets, artists painting caricatures on the streets, artwork hanging left, right and centre. It was my favourite place I visited on my road trip and I cannot recommend a visit enough. The only drawback is that it was heaving with tourists in August! The beauty of Québec City is not at all a well kept secret!

Some things to do:

You have to go explore Old Town, viewing Fairmont Le Château Frontenac from every possible angle! My personal favourite views were the ones from Parc du Bastion-de-la-Reine.

There are some very Instagrammable streets which are worth a visit. Here’s my top 5:

1. Rue de Petite Champlain

2. Place Royale

3. Rue Sois le Fort

4. Governors Promenade e.g. Dufferin Terrace

5. Rue du Tresor

Outside of cute little side streets, I recommend doing a walk. It's a lot of stairs up but it's worth it. Walk across the Governors Promenade, past Dufferin Terrace, towards the Dufferin Terrace Tobogan Slide (unfortunately only open in the winter), up the Cap-Blanc Stairs (the city’s longest staircase), to the Edwin-Bélanger Bandstand, then through the Plains of Abraham to the Parc du Bastion-de-la-Reine back down to the Governors Promenade. The path doesn’t need signs, it’s super easy to follow (just go forward). It’s 5k so should take around an hour with lots of photo stops.

Poutine was said to originate in Québec City so obviously you have to get some there!

I was fortunate to see the fireworks while there, as they were shown over the river twice a week for 20 minutes (Tuesday and Thursday) in August. You could watch for free, grab some street food and maybe do some dancing at Places des Canotiers.

Sky Spa is on the other side of town but it was well worth a visit. The were two heated rooftop pools, two saunas, two steam rooms, two cold waterfall pools, beanbags, free ear plugs, deck chairs and amazing city views. It was so much cheaper than the Strom Spa. I went on a weekday and pretty much got the place by myself. Just make sure you bring flipflops or sandals because they will make you pay $4 for them. They also offer student discount. Don’t miss the relaxation room for double bed bunk beds overlooking yet more of the amazing city.

I spent a day getting the bus to and from Montmorency Falls. It is a beautiful area with a falls even higher than Niagara Falls! There’s a cable car, a bridge walk and maybe some other activities but they were all closed during my visit. The bus journey is long and not so exciting but is an easy one. I recommend getting off on the final stop (where the bus pulls in to do a U turn near a McDonald’s because it’s easier to get to the park as a pedestrian. Google Maps told me to get off a stop earlier but I had to walk around a lot of staff only entrances that it didn’t realise existed. It sounds a bit of hassle but it's immediately worth it!