French Canada Road Trip: Days 6 and 7 (Quebec City)

If you want to visit a walled city in North America, you've got two options. They're separated by about 3,500 miles, two countries, and a few languages. On the west coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico sits Campeche City, founded in 1540 by Spanish conquistador Francisco de Montejo. And at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and St. Charles Rivers in Quebec sits Quebec City.

Behind these buildings, you can see part of the promontory Quebec City was built on. Settlers also developed the lower part of the river basin though, which is the vantage point from which I took this picture.

Samuel De Champlain landed here, on Cap Diament, in 1608. This also makes Quebec City one of the oldest settlements in North America. Immediately, Quebec became the capital of New France, and settlers soon got to work building fortifications.

Quebec City is divided between Lower Old Town (Basse Ville) and Upper Old Town, (Haute Ville) thanks to the high ground created by the river valley below.

In 1620, soldiers began building the Ramparts of Quebec, a wall that would protect the entire southeast edge of town from potential attack. It was built in sections and construction of the fortifications lasted until 1665.

Between 1694 and 1879, a series of gates were built around the city. Only four of them survive today. Still, Quebec City has the only remaining fortified city walls north of Mexico in North America.

Porte St. Jean, one of the first sites for a gate into the city. The gate you see here was built in 1939.

Many of the gates, like Porte St. Jean, have been demolished and reconstructed several times over the centuries. St. Jean is one of the oldest gate locations, dating back to at least 1694, but the present gate was built in 1939.

Entrance to La Citadelle, a military fortification that's still active today.

Though the city was founded at the base of the promontory at Cap Diament, Upper Quebec became the religious and administrative center of Quebec City. It was anchored by La Citadelle, the oldest military building in Canada, still serving as an active military installation.

After the British Conquest swept through the province in 1760, Upper Town was mainly occupied by British government officials and Catholic clergy. In Lower Town, French merchants, artisans, and dock workers did what they could to get by, and the area began to get a seedy reputation.

I arrived in Quebec City on a cold, rainy evening. The weather would hold until I left, but somehow it lent the right air to the city. It seems like Quebec City was meant to be cold and rainy, people huddled under umbrellas walked slowly, passing centuries-old stone buildings.  The smell of a nearby bakery wafted through the air.

My overnight halt was in the front room of a Georgian hotel built in 1851. A block away, Parc du Bastion-de-la-Reine, which had paths leading to La Citadelle. In the opposite direction, a couple of blocks away sits Le Chateau Frontenac and Terassee Dufferin, a 425-meter boardwalk that overlooks the St. Lawrence River. 

Le Chateau Frontenac, rumored to be the most photographed hotel on earth, was built in 1893 by the Canadian Pacific Railway. Construction on this railway began in 1881 and would take four years to complete. By the time it was finished, the railway provided a direct link from eastern Canada to British Columbia on the west coast.

The 600-room luxury hotel is still in operation as a Fairmont Hotels and Resorts property, having been purchased by the chain in 2001 for $185-million. Pointy spires and turrets give the 18-floor hotel the look of a medieval castle. 

During World War II, Frontenac served as a meeting place for Mackenzie King--then-Prime Minister of Canada, Winston Churchill, and Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was here the men planned The Normandy landings, later known as D-Day.

Cannons still line the boardwalk, now more for decoration than action. But you're reminded of the commanding position early military officers had over the landscape. Even on a dreary day, like the one I visited under, you can see several miles across the rural landscape of northeastern Quebec in the distance.

I spent two nights in Quebec City, mostly walking around and taking in the sights of Old City. Most of it was also a balancing act, between my floppy umbrella in one hand and camera in the other, trying to keep the lens clear from the perpetual drizzle. 

In Montreal, I was told Quebec City would be "hardcore French." It was still the old world, they said, three hours away from Montreal and surrounded by sparsely-inhabited country. But strangely, it felt more Americanized than the hip, progressive capital. More Vermont and New York license plates, more English floating through the parks and narrow streets; maybe it was the condensed setting of the Old City, but it felt more like Saint Augustine than Bordeaux.

Nearing the United States border around 4AM.

The dreary weather hung around the next day, and I quickly grew tired of the balancing act. I'd also walked the length of the city during my first day, and drove outside the ramparts to roam surrounding neighborhoods. After bedding early, I hightailed out of Quebec in the early morning hours.

The rest of my trip isn't laden with pictures. I did a marathon drive from Quebec to Washington, D.C. the next day, over 600-miles passing through upstate New York, traversing the Jersey Turnpike, and stopping at the massive rest area on the Delaware border before settling in at my hotel in Alexandria, Virginia. 

Scroll onward to see some more of my favorite shots from the rainy city, Quebec.

To travel back through my series French Canada Road Trip, click here to see all of the posts.

And a rarity from this trip, since I didn't go out too much at night, here are some evening photos from Quebec City. Since I didn't bring a tripod attachment, most of these were taken while the camera was propped up on something--a wall, a railing, a trashcan. I'm pretty happy with the results though. It's just time to buy a new tripod.