Twin appeal
One’s hip and artsy, the other’s steeped in history; here’s why Montreal and Quebec City make the perfect break, writes
Exploring Montreal and Quebec City in Canada
I’ve barely left Montreal airport when I’m confronted by a series of its tourism posters featuring people performing a range of hair-raising looking feats, from balancing on poles to abseiling down buildings. The strapline is ‘Never Grow Up’, and, as I discover over the next couple of days, it couldn’t be more apt for this city – the biggest in the French-speaking province of Quebec – which just loves to have fun.
This is immediately apparent as I head to the Quartier des Spectacles, or the ‘Entertainment District’, in downtown Montreal. There’s a vast square, the Place des Festivals, where concerts and other outdoor events are regularly held, and beyond it is a host of theatres, ticket offices, restaurants and bars, all swarming with excited people. I’ve come in midjuly, when the city is gearing up for a couple of the many festivals it runs year-round. Billboards and theatrefronts are proclaiming big names on the comedy scene, ready for Just for Laughs, Canada’s biggest comedy fest, while a little further up towards the Rue St Denis, acrobatic performers are enticing the crowds as part of the annual Circus Festival (Cirque de Soleil has its headquarters here).
“I think we actually lose count of how many festivals Montreal has every year,” laughs local guide, Martine Wenn, who’s showing me around. “All we really know is that it’s between 100 and 120.” That’s a lot, in anyone’s book, and this includes festivals of everything from ballet, to sport, and even food trucks, for this is also a city that loves to eat. You can get almost anything from one of these polished, shiny vehicles, parked at various locations around town: from ‘beaver tails’ – fried dough with a range of sweet or savoury toppings – to Canadian staple, poutine, otherwise known as chips and gravy, with added cheese curds. And boy, does Montreal love to drink beer, too – there are dozens of microbreweries and craft beer bars throughout the city, some of them releasing that distinctive smell of yeast and hops as we walk past.
Martine wants to show me a couple of the city’s newest attractions, both of which were established last year, in honour of two significant birthdays: Montreal’s 375th – it was officially founded in 1642 by two French missionaries, Paul de Maisonneuve and Jeanna Mance, as part of a project to create a colony dedicated to the Virgin Mary – and Canada’s 150th, commemorating 1867, when Quebec, Ontario, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia united to create the Canadian Confederation.
We stroll down Rue St Denis to the Old Port – Montreal is, essentially, an island, sitting on the St Lawrence River, and to this day is still important for shipping and trading. Looming high behind us is the impressive dome of the chapel Notre Dame de Bon Secours, or ‘Our Lady of the Harbour’, the statue of the Virgin on top immortalised in a line of the song Suzanne by one of the city’s most famous sons, Leonard Cohen. Just across from it is a 60m high observation wheel, which opened in September 2017, and we board it as night falls. The views across the city are spectacular – I can see the giant, illuminated cross situated on the top of Mount Royal hill (a replica of the one erected here by Maisonneuve in 1643); the lit-up windows of the art deco Aldred Building, which looks like a miniature Empire State; and the Gothic exterior of the Basilica of Notre Dame. Then Martine tells me to keep an eye on the steel, cantilevered Jacques Cartier bridge to the west: every hour between 9pm and midnight, it lights up to different patterns, which are dictated by social media users by using a hashtag on Twitter. This art installation was also inaugurated last year, and it produces quite the show, using a range of colours which dazzle off the water below.
There are dozens of microbreweries and craft beer bars throughout Montreal
I’m impressed with how Montreal uses technology; afterwards, strolling back to my hotel via the atmospheric cobbled streets of the old town, I spot various video projections on the walls of some of the buildings, which Martine explains is part of ‘Cite Memoire’, another installation which is a way of telling the story of the city, with short films re-enacting key moments throughout history. And the next day, I discover the Phi Centre, downtown, an arts space which, for the past three years, has held exhibitions using virtual reality. After a few fascinating and mindboggling displays, some of which instill more than a slight feeling of motion-sickness, it’s time to leave the city of the future, and visit a city of the past.
Three hours’ drive east takes me to Quebec City, a small, wellpreserved town with a population of just over 520,000 – compared to Montreal’s sprawl of nearly two million. Constructed, essentially, on a cliff, which tumbles down to the St Lawrence, QC is composed of an upper and lower town, and was the origin of Quebec province. Formerly a trading post for the French and Americans, particularly in fur, it was established as a permanent settlement for the French in 1608 by navigator Samuel de Champlain, who became known as the ‘Father of New France’, as the colony was originally called.
A fine statue in his honour stands proudly by the wide boardwalk overlooking the river in the Upper Town, while behind it rises the fairytale-like, Disney-esque façade of the incredible Chateau Frontenac – not, as the name might suggest, a former home to royalty or aristocracy, but a hotel. No ordinary hotel, however, it was originally built in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway Company, with its architect inspired by castles in France and Scotland. It has played an important role in history, as Winston Churchill, Franklin D Roosevelt and Canadian prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King met here at the Quebec Conferences of 1943 and 1944 to discuss strategy for the Second World War. Today it’s run by the Fairmont chain, and has hosted many other starry guests, from Leonardo Dicaprio to Stephen Spielberg, Paul Mccartney and the Queen; to get a taste of that A-list feeling, I take a seat by the window at the bar and order a cocktail, which comes with the perfect view.
The delight of a city this small is that it’s very easy to walk around, and the following day I pass a happy few hours getting lost in the narrow streets of Vieux Quebec. Starting in the Lower Town, I head for the Place Royale, which has a bronze bust of Louis XIV in the middle. This was erected in 1686, and, because it would have faced the sea – the shoreline has since extended, created by landfill – it was a sign to French sailors to let them know they’d arrived safely in New France. Strolling along nearby Rue Sous le Fort I reach the lively Rue du Petit Champlain, lined with shops, bars, cafes and restaurants; some of the buildings still have original-style painted tin roofs, which replaced the white shingle ones everyone used to have, giving QC its former nickname, the White City.
I end my walk at the Plains of Abraham, a beautiful stretch of parkland where people are playing sports, walking their dogs, or just sitting in the sunshine. Its official name, however, is Battlefields Park, because it was here, in September 1759, that the British fought the French in a bid to take over their Canadian territories. Legend has it that the skirmish lasted less than 30 minutes, as the British had the advantage of surprise; they then ruled until 1867.
Both QC and Montreal give a great snapshot of Quebec’s past, present, and even its future; and most importantly of all, they’re great fun.
Wow Air (wowair.co.uk, 0118 321 8384) flies to Montreal from Edinburgh via Reykjavik three times a week, starting from £169.99 one way. Rooms at the Hotel Monville, Montreal, start from around £150 per night, hotelmonville.com Rooms at the Delta Hotel by Marriott, Quebec City, start from around £187, Marriott.co.uk For more information on Quebec, quebecoriginal.com/en-gb For more on Montreal, mtl.org/en