If you arrive from Montréal with the idea that you will found the
same city, your surprise will be true. Québec is both Canadas oldest
city and its most European. Designated a World Heritage Site by Unesco,
the old city of Québec is built on top of Cap Diamant.
History
The only fortified town of the New World, it has from the begining,
a fontastic geographic and strategic position. In 1672, the governor, Frontenac,
wrote to Colbert :" Nothing seems nicer and magnificient than the situation
off Québec".
The capital city derives its name from the Algonquin word Kébec,
meaning the place where the river narrows. Although
upstream and downstream the river's width is several kilometers, it
measures only one kilometer at Québec.
But, the start point of the town, when in 1608, Samuel de Champlain
build his « habitation », is reduce to a short land made with
alluviums and stuck between the cliff and the bank of the du Saint-Laurent.
Nowdays, this « low-town » is become this image of the old
urban Europe, with its old housesrenoved, this small streets with shops
and restaurants.
