12 Best Sights in Lower Town, Quebec City

Welcome to the oldest stone church in North America! The fortress shape of the altar is no accident; this small, but beautiful stone church on Place Royale is linked to a bellicose past. Grateful French colonists named it in honor of the Virgin Mary, whom they credited with helping French forces defeat two British invasions: one in 1690 by Admiral William Phipps and the other by Sir Hovendon Walker in 1711. The church itself was built in 1688, making it the city's oldest—it has been restored twice since then. Several interesting paintings decorate the walls, and a model of Le Brezé, the boat that transported French soldiers to New France in 1664, hangs from the ceiling. The side chapel is dedicated to Ste. Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris.

Often regarded as one of the most iconic attractions in the Old City due to its location and stunning views of the neighborhood. But the steepness of the city's first iron stairway, an ambitious 1893 design by city architect and engineer Charles Baillairgé, is ample evidence of how it got its name: Breakneck Steps. No serious injuries have been reported on the stairs, despite their ominous name! Still, those 59 steps were quite an improvement on the original wooden stairway, built in the 17th century, that linked the Upper Town and Lower Town.

Wedged between narrow streets at the foot of the cliff, this spacious museum with a striking limestone-and-glass façade was designed by architect Moshe Safdie to blend into the landscape. Its bell tower echoes the shape of the city's church steeples. Two excellent permanent exhibits examine Québec's history. People of Québec, Now and Then engagingly synthesizes 400 years of social and political history—including the role of the Catholic church and the rise of the Québec nationalist movement—with artifacts, time lines, original films and interviews, and news clips. It's a great introduction to the issues that face the province today. This Is Our Story looks at the 11 aboriginal nations that inhabit Québec. The temporary exhibits here are also always worth a visit.

Rue du Petit-Champlain, the oldest street in the city, was once the main thoroughfare of a harbor village, with trading posts and the homes of rich merchants. Today it has pleasant boutiques, art galleries, and cafés, and on summer days the street is packed with tourists. Natural-fiber weaving, Inuit carvings, hand-painted silks, local designers, and enameled copper crafts are among local specialties for sale here. If you're coming from Upper Town, take the Escalier Casse-Cou (Breakneck Steps) down, and the funicular back up (or round-trip): both deliver you to the start of this busy, unique street.

Place Royale is where Samuel de Champlain founded the City of Québec in 1608; more than 400 years and several iterations later, this cobblestone square is still considered to be the cradle of French-speaking North America. Flanked on one side by the oldest stone church in North America, Église Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, and on the other by houses with steep Normandy-style roofs, dormer windows, and chimneys, once the homes of wealthy merchants, Place Royale is the epicenter of Old Québec. Until 1686 the area was called Place du Marché, but its name changed when a bust of Louis XIV was placed at its center. During the late 1600s and early 1700s, when Place Royale was continually under threat of British attack, the colonists moved progressively higher to safer quarters atop the cliff in Upper Town. After the French colony fell to British rule in 1759, Place Royale flourished again with shipbuilding, logging, fishing, and fur trading. The Fresque des Québécois, a 4,665-square-foot trompe-l'oeil mural depicting 400 years of Québec's history, is to the east of the square, at the corner of rue Notre-Dame and côte de la Montagne.

Crossing the St. Lawrence River on this ferry will reward you with a striking view of the Québec City skyline, with the Château Frontenac and the Québec Seminary high atop the cliff. The view is even more impressive at night. Ferries generally run every 20 or 30 minutes from 6 am until 6 pm, and then every hour until 2:20 am; there are additional ferries from April through November.

Antiques shops cluster around rues St-Pierre and St-Paul, the latter once part of a business district packed with warehouses, stores, and businesses. After World War I, shipping and commercial activities plummeted, and the low rents attracted antiques dealers. Today their shops, together with numerous cafés, restaurants, boutique hotels, and art galleries, have made this one of the town's more popular areas.

This boutique, run by the Conseil des métiers d'art, a coordinating body that oversees all kinds of arts and crafts disciplines and organizes annual fairs, features the best from Québec in glass art, porcelain, jewelry, woodworking, and much more, most with a stylish, contemporary feel.

Throughout the month of August, an international competition of fireworks performances set to music lights up the skies between Old Québec and Lévis, launched from barges on the St. Lawrence River, near the ferry docks. Special shows are presented on the sites before the first rockets launch.

This graded stone house (which is actually three houses brought together) was built in 1752 for the shipowner Jean-Baptiste Chevalier. This location near the docks was popular with import-export merchants and, later, with innkeepers. The architecture is quintessential New France, with its mansards and scarlet roof. Although the building is not open to visitors, it's well worth a look from the outside.

Louis Jolliet, the first European to see the Mississippi River, and his fellow explorers used this 1683 house as a base for westward journeys. Today it's the lower station of the funicular. A monument commemorating Jolliet's 1672 trip to the Mississippi stands in the small park next to the house, which is at the foot of the Escalier Casse-Cou (Breakneck Staircase).

What used to be a vast parking lot across from the Museum of Civilization has been replaced by an elegant and modern park that provides great views of Upper Town and improves access to the river for locals who now linger and stroll here, and also for the cruise ships that often moor here. Even the new multistory parking garage has been dressed up in an elegant wooden façade that gives the area extra character.