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Quebec Map

I've been to Quebec City many times, and for some reason, many of those trips were less than ideal. Maybe it's because I've never had a "good" trip to Quebec City. 1974: at the tender age of 11 I was sent on an exchange to Loretteville and what I remember best is going hysterical with homesickness when my Mom called at the house near Quebec and wailing and crying and refusing to come to the phone. 1982: Broke after a hitchhiking trip through the Maritimes I arrive in Quebec with no money to do anything or stay anywhere. 1984: On my way with Jim to see the "tall ships" I put all my money into my camera bag and left it in the Montreal bus station, never to be seen again. The trip went downhill from there. 2004: Quebec was the booby prize of a trip after Yvon had an allergic reaction that killed our London/Paris journey (on my birthday). It was rainy and cold the whole time.

All those visits and my photos were terrible. I had said that the only way I would go back to the city was if I was fairly certain of good weather, and spontaneously with little notice. However, when Marcy approached me about a trip in the summer of 2024, I suggested Quebec and off we went. Though there was a mixture of cloud and sun for our visit, the dominating weather feature was the "heat dome" that pushed temperatures into the mid-30s. Nonetheless, we walked many kilometres ever day together.  

 

Photo List (Total 685 Photos)

Click bolded headers below to view, or click "just the best" for a quick tour of the city, and the second "just the best" for photos outside the city.

 

Photos of Quebec City from 2024

  • Vieux-Québec (126 photos) - This gallery is everything within the walls of the old city of Quebec, though it starts at Place d'Youville, which is technically outside the walls but always feels inside to me. The order of the photos wind throug the old city without a lot of sense, but the main sights - the city hall, the Dufferin Terrace, the Chateau Frontenac, are all present at some point or another. I was pleased to have very different light conditions over our time in the city, and this is reflected in these images.     

  • Basse-Ville (106 photos) - This gallery is for the Lower Town of Quebec. It starts at the western edge, where the Autoroute Dufferin-Montmorency crosses the river, and continues east, to the Gare du Palais, along the Port de Quebec, and into the more touristy areas just down the cliffs from Vieux-Quebec. It includes a visit to the Musée de la Civisilation de Quebec, a wander through the tourist zones, and a ferry ride to Lévis to capture photos of the centre of Quebec. It ends with the funicular going up the cliff.  

  • Along the Grande-Allée (87 photos) - This area, just outside the walls of the city, is a grand processional avenue that starts with official buildings, moves through a commercial zone with mostly restaurants, then becomes more official again. This gallery moves east to west, and has photos of the Hôtel du Parlement, the convention centre and other government buildings nearby, has two visits to the Plains of Abraham including the Jardin Jeanne d'Arc, and the Musée National de Beaux-Arts. It also has photos of things just off the street, like the charming Avenue Cartier.

  • St-Roch and Beyond (121 photos) - Marcy and I explored the areas outside the old city quite bit, on a few walks through them, even in the extreme "heat dome". These are the neighbourhoods of Saint-Jean-Baptiste, Saint-Roch and Limoilou. Though they are sometimes rugged, they are hilly, Rue Saint-Jean is down a fairly big hill from the Grande-Allée, and Rue Saint-Joseph is down yet another hill, nestled in beside the flood plain of the Saint-Charles River. These photos are houses, commercial streets, parks, and the gallery ends at the fantastic restaurant Arvi, where we ate well.   

 

Photos mostly of Quebec City, from visits previous to 2024

  • Quebec City with Yvon in 2004 (26 photos) - A shockingly small number of photos from a trip with Yvon in 2004. This was a bit of a booby prize trip, occurring after he became ill on our planned London and Europe trip and we had to return early. We drove to Quebec City in lousy weather and spent a few day in town and nearby.    

  • Immersion trip to Trois-Pistoles, 1987 (No photos) - Amazingly, I have no photos at all from several visit to Quebec City in 1987. I was in Quebec City quite a bit that summer, since I spent about six weeks on a French immersion course in Trois-Pistoles, up the St. Lawrence, and visited the town with my mother on the way down, and returned for several weekend visits during my time in Trois-Pistoles.

  • Tall ships with Jim in 1984 (15 photos) - A legendarily bad trip with my partner at the time, Jim. I left our camera bag with all my money and no ID somewhere in the Montreal bus station, on our way there, and it was taken. In Quebec, we found that our lodging, which seemed so close on a map, was far, far away from anything civilized and uphill. Jim recalls waiting forever for the ferry to come, I recall smashing an umbrella into pieces and throwing it in the road somewhere, and we left early. These photos were converted from slides.

  • On the way back from the Maritimes, 1982 (13 photos) - On my way back from hitchhiking around the Maritimes, I arrived in Quebec City in the middle of its summer festival. Not great photos here, scanned from tiny little originals.

  • Loretteville exchange, 1974 (5 photos) - These are some of the first photos I ever took in my life (and it shows). Loretteville is a town north of Quebec City, now merged into the capital - I stayed with the Bilodeau family there. Looking at these photos, none of which are actually of Quebec City itself, the Bilodeau family home in Loretteville seems an unlikely place to find myself.

Photos mostly of the area around Quebec

  • Around Quebec City with Yvon in 2004 (12 photos) - Photos from the 2004 trip with Yvon, but near Quebec rather than in the city, including Ile d'Orléans.

  • Driving along the St. Lawrence (37 photos) - Yvon and I had some trouble getting back from a trip to Saint John for a wedding, and we ended up driving to Quebec City with Felix and Alma to catch a flight. These start at the Moncton airport, but are mostly taken in some small towns along the river north of Quebec City. 

  • Gaspe (137 photos) - On our way to New Brunswick in September 2014, we took a few extra days and drove out the Gaspe. The weather was lovely, bright and sunny and warm, and we went to several parks, some museums, and other sites along the way. These photos start with a few shots of Quebec's skyline (from Levis) and head east from there.