A very popular day trip offered to EC Montreal students by Iko Tours is to Quebec City. Quebec City is located 2.5 hours away from Montreal. It is the capital city of the province of Quebec. Quebec City is located along the Saint Lawrence river in Canada’s mostly French-speaking province of Quebec. It was founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain and it remains the oldest French-speaking city in North America. It is surrounded by fortified city walls called “Ramparts” which are the oldest fortifications north of Mexico. Recently having celebrated the 400th anniversary, Quebec City certainly displays history, beauty and culture; it makes a wonderful day trip from Montreal.
The trip to Quebec City always includes a visit to the Montmorency Falls. They are the tallest waterfalls in the province of Quebec. Students are always so impressed by the grand expanses of nature that typifies Quebec.
EC Montreal students who join the trip enjoy an hour-long walking tour of the upper and lower cities of Quebec. They learn all about the history of this city, and see the Murals, The Dufferin terrace, the famous cannonball, The Petit Champlain district’s cobblestone streets are lined with bistros and boutiques. The St-Lawrence River, and of course, the World-Famous Chateau Frontenac. Students have a wonderful opportunity to see history, beauty and culture all in one day!
It had been ten years since I visited Quebec City and my children have never been, so this past weekend, we decided to take advantage of one of the last warm fall days and enjoy Quebec City with the family! What a great decision we made! We had the most beautiful weekend! We arrived at around 3 p.m. and checked into a hotel overlooking the majestic Chateau Frontenac. We dumped our bags and head out to enjoy the daylight while it lasted! We walked along the cobblestone streets and found a wonderful little bistro to have a late lunch, early dinner. Quebec is known for its microbreweries. The restaurant we chose brewed its own fruity beer. It was delicious and went really well with the bison burgers we ordered! That is another thing you can find in abundance in Quebec City, freshly caught game.
After our wonderful meal, we continued to walk along St. Jean Street towards the Chateau Frontenac. We walked along the boardwalk and took the steps all the way up to the Plains of Abraham. There must be over one thousand steps to the top. We made our way down and ventured towards lower Quebec next. We visited the many little boutiques and shops and enjoyed the impressive Halloween display they had set up.
Although our legs were so tired from walking, we kept going along the little streets in both lower and upper Quebec, listening to all the street performers on every corner. Saxophonists, violists, guitarists and spoon players were among the musical performances we enjoyed on a beautiful fall evening.
We returned to the hotel exhausted but had to take advantage of the beautiful hotel pool. We swam a few laps and enjoyed the hot tub to take care of all our sore muscles.
We sat on our balcony and enjoyed a nice glass of Quebecois red wine before turning in for the night.
The next morning, we woke up bright and early to get a great start to the day! We found a cute little eatery for breakfast. We had the absolute best café latte in a bowl we had ever had! A generous portion of eggs Benedict with potatoes, warm toast and home-made strawberry jam was on the menu! We enjoyed every last bite!
We couldn’t pass up the opportunity of going to a traditional French bakery to take some goodies back to Montreal with us. We bought a baguette, croissants and Halloween cupcakes for the girls.
We walked to the center of Old Quebec where they had a Halloween display. We enjoyed taking pictures of all the different installations. We then walked to the top of the fortified bridge before heading back to the hotel to check out.
We then drove twenty minutes to a shopping mall called Les Galleries. The mall has an indoor amusement park called Mega Parc. There, they have a steam punk themed amusement park. The girls enjoyed the carousel, Ferris wheel, roller coaster, train ride and many other fun rides.
It was a glorious weekend that we all enjoyed thoroughly! The girls asked if we could come back next weekend?!
We will continue to recommend the Quebec City day trips to our students at EC Montreal. A visit to Montreal would not be complete without visiting this charming and magical city of Quebec! Imagine, we have all of these beautiful places in close to our English Schools in Canada !!!