Quebec's 400th anniversary for the French New World
Sir Paul McCartney joined the party. So did Celine Dion. The Louvre has sent a gift of treasured artwork. And the guest of honor is celebrating her 400th birthday with grace and charm.
The celebration is running all year long in Quebec City, marking four centuries since its founding.
As the capital of French culture in North America, and the only European-style walled city on the continent, Quebec offers a fascinating glimpse of what life might have been like had the French, not the British, ruled the New World.
Filled with winding, narrow cobblestone streets, magnificent chateaux and excellent French restaurants, this United Nations World Heritage site offers a surprisingly satisfying alternative to those who'd love to visit France, but can't afford the airfare, the euro or the attitude.
For my wife and 1-year-old son on a recent visit sponsored by the Quebec Ministry of Tourism, the party began with pure kid stuff, deepened with a trip through history and ended with more revelry than we could handle.
We began our stay at the Hotel Loews du Concorde, which offers families a bonus so simple yet welcome it's a wonder more hotels don't do it. Upon arrival, your room holds a selection of toys for your child to play with during your stay.
More than once, our child's music table and dinosaur provided just enough diversion for us to get showered and dressed to go out. The heated hotel pool also features a play area and floaties for kids. And the rotating rooftop restaurant L'Astral, voted best hotel restaurant by city residents, offers the convenience of a buffet with the freshness of fine French dining and local ingredients.
On the street, we got our bearings via a driving tour of the city's historic sites with history buff and volunteer guide Brian Semple.
Like 97 percent of Quebec residents, Semple speaks French, but like almost everyone in the tourism industry, he also speaks English.
As Semple explained, Quebec was founded by Samuel de Champlain as a fur trading outpost, its name derived from the American Indian Algonquin word for where the St. Lawrence River narrows.
The strategic location led to the construction of a cliff-side fort to defend the passage, an outpost that later became La Citadelle, a walled fortress known as the Gibraltar of North America. It now offers group tours, complete with the changing of the guard and a regimental goat.
As we drove past a former farmer's field outside the fort known as the Plains of Abraham, we saw where British forces defeated the French Army in 1759, the decisive battle for the control of what would become Canada.
Despite the British having ruled Quebec since before the American Revolution, it retains its French culture in architecture, food and language.
The old walled city is divided into Upper Town or Haut-Ville on a hilltop, and Lower Town or Basse-Ville down below, both brimming with tourist shops, art galleries, restaurants and historic sites.
Overlooking all this, with a sweeping view of the river valley, stands Fairmount Le Chateau Frontenac, a magnificent, five-star, 19th-century lodge with an award-winning restaurant, Le Champlain, and the feel of a well-appointed castle. Last year, it was named one of the 500 best hotels in the world by Travel & Leisure magazine. Even if you don't care to spend $649 for a room with a river view, it's a must to walk through and pick up a sense of Old World style.
Back on the street, you'll be reminded that Quebec was built on a hill, and most of the streets go up or down. So take the funicular down to the lower port and check out the oldest French church in North America, Notre Dame des Victoires, dating from 1688.
The city's French heritage is most evident in the fine French restaurants that are dotted all over, perhaps nowhere more so than Restaurant Initiale, an intimate, upscale restaurant in the Old City.
Chef Yvan Lebrun serves a changing selection of delicious, locally produced cuisine, including savory game like quail and deer, and for those still getting over Chicago's ban, foie gras. Tempting deserts include chocolate flan with cream of pear and fennel. To celebrate the cities' anniversary in style, an eight-course prix fixe menu comes for $97.
Perhaps the most popular restaurant in town is Le Cochon Dingue, French for the Crazy Pig. It features excellent, hearty basics like pork ribs and steak frites. But even if the city streets look empty, cruise ships can fill the restaurant quickly, so prepare to wait up to an hour, even with reservations
On our last night in the city, to emphasize the region's roots, young Quebecers ran through the streets, wearing white and blue face paint and carrying the Fleur de Lis of the Quebec flag, celebrating the Feast of St. John, the patron saint of French Canada.
Shouts and fireworks lasted well into the night, and carried over into an a.m. party in the room next to ours at Hotel Le Priori, which offered a hip loft apartment, complete with kitchen, living room and fireplace, in the heart of the old port area.
A call to management eventually lowered the noise level from nightclub to bar, but we had to leave the giddy Quebecers to continue the celebration without us.
The ongoing festivities will be highlighted by a free outdoor concert for 100,000 by Celine Dion on the Plains of Abraham Aug. 22. Most of the tickets have been given away, but a few thousand are reserved for visitors in the city that day. It's one in a series of free shows that also featured Paul McCartney.
Another stunning spectacle is the city's nightly multimedia show, put together by theater director Robert LePage, and billed as the largest in the world on an architectural structure. The Image Mill is projected on the side of 81 grain silos, making for a sweeping vista as it recounts the city's history in a 40-minute feast for the eyes and ears, through Aug. 24.
For a sense of the city's immigrant history, catch the "Passengers" exhibit at Espace 40, which traces the personal stories of the region's settlers. The waterfront location also hosts nightly free shows, avant-garde landscape gardens, and street artists through Sept. 28.
Perhaps the most memorable of the city's special events is a traveling art collection from The Louvre at the Musee National Des Beaux-Arts du Quebec. The collection is unprecedented in its pulling together of 274 major works from all of the Louvre's departments, including Egyptian antiquity, sculptures and paintings. The star of the show is the dramatic Zephyrus and Pscyhe, a dazzling white marble depiction of an ancient Roman legend.
So even if you can't make it to Paris, the French will meet you halfway for a party in Quebec.
If you go
Quebec, Canada
GO: For special events marking the 400th anniversary of an Old World French city in the New World
NO: If you don't like French culture
Need to know: Society of the 400th Anniversary of Quebec, (418) 648-2008, www.myquebec2008.com; Quebec City Tourism, (418) 641-6654, www.quebecregion.com.
Getting there: Quebec is about a two-hour flight nonstop from O'Hare on United Airlines/Air Canada, or four to six hours with a stop on Northwest, Delta and other airlines
Getting around: Old Quebec is very walkable, but hilly, so take a cab, horse-drawn carriage or the funicular when necessary.
Where to stay: Loews le Concorde Hotel, 1225, cours du General de Montcalm, www.loewshotels.com (418) 647-2222
Fairmont Le Chateau Frontenac, 1 rue de Carrieres, (866) 540-4460, www.fairmount.com/frontenac
Hotel Courtyard Marriott de Quebec, 850 Place D'Youville (866) 694-4004, www.marriott-quebec.com
Hotel Le Priori, 15 rue Sault-au-Matelot, (800) 351-3992, www.hotellepriori.com
Where to eat: L'Astral, 1225 cours du General de Montcalm, (800) 463-5256; revolving atop the Loews le Concorde. Offers spectacular views of Old Quebec and the St. Lawrence River, while dining on regional specialties and seafood with a buffet option.
Restaurant Initiale, 54 rue St. Pierre, www.restaurantinitiale.com, (418) 694-1818. Fine French dining in a calm, quiet enclave, featuring foie gras, roasted game and a tour of the region's bounty through a selection of prix fixe menus.
Le Cochon Dingue, multiple locations, www.cochondingue.com, (418) 555-5555. French home cooking with steak frites, mussels and succulent ribs.
400th anniversary celebrations: The Louvre in Quebec: Life & Arts, at the Musee National des Beaux-Arts, Parc des Champs de Bataille, www.mnba.qc.ca. The great museum visiting in miniature: 271 pieces from eight museum departments, from Egyptian antiquity to Romance sculpture; through Oct. 26.
Celine Dion concert, Plains of Abraham, free. A few thousand tickets will be given out in the city on the day of the show; Aug. 22.
Cirque du Soleil will put on a special show for Quebecers to mark Quebec's birthday, at the Colisee Pepsi, Oct. 17-19.
Les Miserables, in its native language, produced by Quebecers at the Theatre Capitole through Oct. 19.
Espace 400, the center of the celebration, with nightly shows, a history of immigrants, a landscape design exhibit and free concerts and shows nightly, on the waterfront in the old city.