Things to Do in Quebec City: Tours, Tickets & Day Trips

Ranked by traveller reviews: 1) a guided walking tour of Old Quebec, 2) Montmorency Falls and its suspension bridge, 3) the Old Quebec food tour with poutine, maple and cheese tastings, 4) the Petit-Champlain quarter and the funicular, 5) the Île d’Orléans cider, wine and chocolate tour, 6) a sightseeing cruise on the St. Lawrence, 7) the Château Frontenac and Dufferin Terrace, 8) the Plains of Abraham and the Citadelle, 9) the animated crime and ghost walks and 10) Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica.

Plan two to three days. Day one: a morning walking tour from the Château Frontenac through Upper Town, the funicular down to Petit-Champlain and Place Royale, the Musée de la civilisation, then the Plains of Abraham at sunset. Day two: Montmorency Falls first thing (walk the bridge, take the cable car or the 487 steps), lunch and cider on Île d’Orléans, a food tour or river cruise in the evening. Day three: the Citadelle and changing of the guard in summer, Grande Allée, Saint-Roch and a ghost walk after dark.

The ramparts and the Saint-Louis and Saint-Jean gates, Dufferin Terrace with its view over the river, the Plains of Abraham (Canada’s first national historic park), Place Royale and the Fresque des Québécois, Petit-Champlain’s boutiques and murals, the basilica, the Parliament Building tours, the Old Port market and Bassin Louise, the Samuel-De Champlain promenade, the artists of Rue du Trésor, Rue Saint-Jean and the Saint-Roch district, and the Lévis ferry’s view of the skyline for the price of a bus ticket. The Château Frontenac’s lobby is open to all.

Montmorency Falls (15 minutes) and the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica (30 minutes; half-day tours from about $74), Île d’Orléans’ farms, cideries and chocolatiers (20 minutes; $65), Canyon Sainte-Anne (40 minutes), Jacques-Cartier National Park for hiking and canoeing (45 minutes), the Wendake Huron-Wendat village (20 minutes), Village Vacances Valcartier and the Ice Hotel (30 minutes), Charlevoix and Baie-Saint-Paul (90 minutes) and whale watching at Tadoussac (three hours; a long day). Montreal is three hours away.

A ghost tour or the animated crime walk through the lantern-lit Old Town, the terraces of Grande Allée, the bars of Rue Saint-Jean and Saint-Roch’s Rue Saint-Joseph, a cocktail at the 1608 bar in the Château Frontenac, Petit-Champlain’s lights and street music, concerts at Le Diamant and the Palais Montcalm, an evening river cruise and, in July, the Festival d’été’s open-air stages on the Plains of Abraham. Dufferin Terrace at night is the free classic.

Winter is Quebec City at its most magical: the Carnaval de Québec in February with Bonhomme, ice sculptures and night parades, the Hôtel de Glace ice hotel from January to March, the toboggan slide on Dufferin Terrace, the German Christmas Market and lights from late November, skating at Place D’Youville, snowshoeing on the Plains of Abraham, the frozen ‘sugarloaf’ at Montmorency Falls and skiing at Mont-Sainte-Anne, Stoneham and Le Massif. Dress for -15°C and enjoy the quiet streets.

The Aquarium du Québec’s polar bears and walruses, the Musée de la civilisation’s hands-on exhibits, the funicular and the Dufferin Terrace toboggan in winter, a horse-drawn calèche through the Old Town, the ferry to Lévis, the cable car and suspension bridge at Montmorency Falls, the changing of the guard at the Citadelle in summer, Village Vacances Valcartier’s water park and winter tubing, the chocolate museum at Érico and the Plains of Abraham’s trails and skating.

June to September for warm days, terraces, the Festival d’été in July and every tour running; late September to mid-October for the autumn colours on Île d’Orléans and in Jacques-Cartier park. February brings the Carnaval and the Ice Hotel; December the Christmas market. April and November are the quiet shoulder months.

Yes — at 83 metres the falls are 30 metres taller than Niagara, 15 minutes from the Old Town, and free to visit apart from parking; walk across the suspension bridge over the lip, take the cable car or climb the 487-step staircase, and in winter see the ice ‘sugarloaf’ at the base. Combine them with Île d’Orléans or the Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica on a half-day tour (about $74) if you have no car.