Things to do in Québec City

Landmark · Haute-Ville and Basse-Ville

The only walled city north of Mexico and a UNESCO World Heritage site — ramparts, the Château Frontenac, and the seventeenth-century streets of Petit-Champlain below the cliff.

Local tip: Take the Escalier casse-cou down to Petit-Champlain rather than paying for the funiculaire; it is free and it is the older route. And come in January, when the stone, the snow and the empty streets do something no summer photograph of this place has ever captured.

Nature · Above the cliff, west of the walls

A 98-hectare battlefield park on the escarpment, with the river 60 metres below and the city's biggest events held on it.

Local tip: In winter the park grooms free cross-country ski trails and a skating loop, and almost nobody outside the neighbourhood uses them on a weekday. In July the same grass holds the Festival d'été main stage.

Neighborhood · Basse-Ville, below the cliff

The old industrial Lower Town rebuilt around software firms, independent restaurants and Rue Saint-Joseph — the city's counterweight to the tourist quarter.

Local tip: This is where people who work in tech actually eat and drink, and it is five minutes from the old town but feels like a different city. Note the microclimate: sitting below the cliff, it is measurably warmer and far less windy than Haute-Ville in winter.

Neighborhood · North across the Saint-Charles river

A tight grid of 1920s brick flats with outdoor staircases along 3e Avenue — the most liveable cheap central neighbourhood in the city.

Local tip: Rents here run several hundred dollars below Montcalm for a comparable flat and the walk to Saint-Roch is fifteen minutes. It is almost entirely francophone, which is exactly why newcomers who move here learn French fastest.

Nature · 15–20 minutes east

A farm island in the middle of the St. Lawrence, reached over a bridge that passes a waterfall 83 metres high — half again the height of Niagara.

Local tip: Do the island in September for the apple and blackcurrant harvest rather than in strawberry season, when the traffic on the single ring road is genuinely bad. The falls are better in deep winter, when the spray freezes into a cone at the base that people climb.

Food · ExpoCité, Limoilou

The city's public market — Île d'Orléans growers, Charlevoix cheesemakers and cider makers under one roof, open year-round.

Local tip: It moved here from the Old Port in 2019 and a great many visitors still go looking for it at the water. Locals shop here on Saturday mornings; go before ten, and go in autumn when the island harvest is in.