190 Best Sights in Quebec, Canada

The extensive five-year restoration and modernization of Montréal's Second Empire–style city hall was completed in 2024, at a price tag of C$211 million dollars. That's almost double the predicted cost, but it was worth it. During renovations of the interior, workers uncovered original moldings and plasterwork that had been hidden under more modern ceilings, as well as original wood and marble floors concealed by carpeting. Windows, doors, all made of wood, in addition to wrought iron grilles, light fixtures, bronzes, and stained glass windows were all restored to their original glory. As for the exterior, workers spent two and half years cleaning and repairing the facade, replacing some cornices and a hundred or so limestone stones, and polishing and replacing some parts of the copper roof. It's a place in which Montrealers can take pride.

The newly renovated city hall is brighter and more energy efficient, eco-friendly and user-friendly. It's also more welcoming and accessible. Visitors can view a permanent exhibition, art works and some areas previously closed to the public. A tour of the museum, including the permanent exhibition, is free.

The Assemblée Nationale du Québec, the sole French-speaking legislature in continental North America, convenes within the stately Second Empire–style building constructed between 1877 and 1886. If the Assembly is in session, try to secure a spot in the visitors' gallery to witness the spirited exchanges between the federalist-leaning Liberals and the secessionist Parti Quebecois. But even if a session isn't underway, the buildings themselves, designed by Québec architect Eugène-Étienne Taché, are well worth exploring. The façade is adorned with statues of pivotal figures in Québec history, including Cartier, Champlain, Frontenac, Wolfe, and Montcalm.

A 60-minute guided tour (offered in English or French) provides access to the President's Gallery, the Parlementaire restaurant, the Legislative Council Chamber, and the National Assembly Chamber. Keep in mind that tours may be restricted during legislative sessions. Additionally, outdoor tours of the gardens and statues are available during the summer months.

A quick detour on the ferry (C$14 one-way) across Lac des Deux-Montagnes brings you to this small town with old houses now used for art galleries, boutiques, and Christmas shops. In winter there's an "ice bridge": basically a plowed path across a well-frozen lake. Taking a walk across the bridge is a singular experience.

A 25-minute drive outside city limits takes you into another world, that of the Huron-Wendat Nation, one group of Canada's First Nations peoples. The Huron-Wendat are famous for their handcrafted clothing, decorations, and hunting tools, which are on display at the village. A "traditional site" offers a fascinating traditional village exhibition, complete with longhouse, dances, and storytelling. Visitors can take guided tours and discover some stunning crafts in the huge gift shop. Traditional meals are served in an on-site restaurant. The spectacular Kabir Kouba waterfall, carved into a deep and steep gorge, is definitely worth a stop as well.

A free, government-run ferry from the wharf in St-Joseph-de-la-Rive takes you on the 15-minute trip to the island where Jacques Cartier's men gathered coudres (hazelnuts) in 1535. Since then, the island has produced many a goélette (a type of sailing ship), and the families of former captains now run several small inns. You can bike around the island and see windmills and water mills, or stop at the stores selling paintings and crafts, such as traditional handwoven household linens.

After a complete C$38.4 million metamorphosis, the Insectarium, reopened in 2022, now houses more than 3,000 plants of 150 different varieties and approximately 175 species of insects—including up to 80 species of butterflies flitting about any one time. The reconfigured spaces, inspired by real insect habitats, feature chambers, nests, vegetation, galleries, and soil. Immersive educational experiences aim to replicate life as seen and felt by an insect. For instance, the ground vibrates and ultraviolet visual effects mimic a bug’s vision. In this way, visitors are encouraged to move around the way an insect would, by, say, having to squeeze through tunnels or hold on to vertical rods meant to imitate blades of grass. With the new Insectarium, the first of its kind in North America, the hope is that this more intimate experience will lead visitors to rethink our relationships with bugs. The revitalized venue also includes exhibits and a children's activities room.

Knife-carved arches, columns, and other decorative elements mark the impressive wooden church built between 1908 and 1912 by more than 300 volunteers, motivated by their feeling that the community needed a sanctuary. This church follows the cruciform plan of Norman style. The nave is just over 26 feet tall, and 60 hand-carved sculptures decorate the structure.

For C$18 you can tour the vineyard and taste three award-winning wines. Upon reservation, groups can dine in the adjacent four-star restaurant serving the best in regional cuisine. Across the road, overlooking some of the grapevines, is an appealing five-room bed-and-breakfast with a spa. It's worth the trip, even if it's only to take in the splendor of the exceptionally lovely grounds.

The park entrance closest to Mont-Tremblant is at La Diable Vistors' Centre, just beyond the village of Lac Supérieur and about a half-hour drive from the resort.

This working forge belongs to the talented local artisan Guy Bel, who has done ironwork restoration for Québec City. He was born in Lyon, France, and studied there at the École des Beaux-Arts. You can watch him and his team at work; his stylish candlesticks, chandeliers, fireplace tools, and other ironwork are for sale.

Things are buzzing at this workshop and store devoted to bees and honey. An exhibit explains every aspect of honey production, and you can taste honey and honey ice creams, chocolates, and snacks made by bees that have fed on different kinds of flowers, including clover and blueberry. It's a 10-minute drive east of Montmorency Falls.

Every year, it seems, this amusement park, at the eastern end of Île Ste-Hélène, adds some new and monstrous way to scare the living daylights (and maybe even your lunch) out of you. Vipère, a free-fly roller coaster, lifts you 107 feet up and subjects you to unexpected drops, vertical free falls, and 360-degree somersaults. Chaos is a single loop that takes you forward, backward, and upside down while sitting face-to-face with other riders. Titan, a giant swaying pendulum will have you—or the kids—soaring and spinning 148 feet above the park, traveling at speeds up to 70 mph. Demon, an extreme, high-speed ride, twists you, twirls you, and turns you upside down, then douses you with water jets. The park also aims to terrify with such stomach-turning champions as Endör, the Goliath, the Vampire, Monstre, and Vol Ultime. For the less daring, there are Ferris wheels, boat rides, and kiddie rides.  The popular International Fireworks Competition is held here on Thursdays and Sundays in late June and July.

Mont-Royal's single body of water, actually a reclaimed bog, is a great place for kids (and parents) to float model boats or rent a rowboat in the summertime (See  www.lemontroyal.qc.ca/en/rowboats-and-outdoor-games for rowboat, mölkky, spikeball, and cornhole game rentals). In winter, the lake's frozen surface attracts whole families of skaters, and nearby there's a groomed slope where kids of all ages can ride inner tubes. The glass-fronted Beaver Lake Pavilion is a pleasant bistro that serves lunch and dinner. Skate, snowshoe, and cross-country-ski rentals are available downstairs.

The canal is all about leisure—biking, rollerblading, strolling along the water, and picnicking—but it wasn't always so. Built in 1825 to get boats and cargo around the treacherous Lachine Rapids, it quickly became a magnet for all sorts of industries. But when the St. Lawrence Seaway opened in 1959, allowing large cargo ships to sail straight from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes without stopping in Montréal, the canal closed to navigation and became an illicit dumping ground for old cars and the bodies of victims of underworld killings. The area around it degenerated into an industrial slum.

A federal agency rescued the site in 1978, planting lawns and trees along the old canal, transforming it into a long, narrow park, or parc linéaire. Some of the abandoned canneries, sugar refineries, and steelworks have since been converted into desirable residential and commercial condominiums. The bicycle path is the first link in the more than 97 km (60 miles) of bike trails that make up the Pôle des Rapides ( 514/364–4490).

Two permanent exhibits at the Lachine Canal Visitor Services Centre, at the western end of the canal, explain its history and construction. The center also has a shop and lookout terrace.

The Scieur brothers, Jean-Paul and François, are sixth-generation winemakers originally from France, who have created their own "Champagne universe" in Québec. Their Selection range of wines includes sparkling, white, and rosé. Red, fortified, flavored, and ice wines are also available. From mid-June to the end of October, they offer the Bubbles, Wines, and Champagne guided tour (but only in French due to the extensive vocabulary of the subject) as well as à la carte tastings for the price of a C$6 souvenir glass. Visitors may also tour the Traditional Method Interpretation Centre to learn about the history of the Scieur brothers or just wander the vineyard and experience a little bit of France in Québec.

A costumed maid or chauffeur greets you when you visit this elegant Grande Allée house, the former home of Louis S. St. Laurent, prime minister of Canada from 1948 to 1957. Within the house, which is now part of the federally owned Plains of Abraham properties, period furnishings and multimedia touches tell St. Laurent's story and illustrate the lifestyle of upper-crust families in 1950s Québec City.

This stately stone house, actually three residences unified into one, was built in 1752 for the shipowner Jean-Baptiste Chevalier. Its location near the docks was highly sought after by import-export merchants, and later by innkeepers. The architecture is quintessential New France, with its distinctive mansard roof and striking scarlet color. Although the building is not open to visitors, its exterior is exceptionally well worth a look.

The island's first home was built in 1648 for Jacques Gourdeau de Beaulieu, who was the first seigneur (a landholder who distributed lots to tenant farmers) of Ste-Pétronille. Remodeled over the years, this white house with blue shutters now incorporates both French and Québec styles. Its thick walls and dormer windows are characteristic of Breton architecture, but its sloping, bell-shaped roof, designed to protect buildings from large amounts of snow, is typical Québec style. The house is not open to the public.

Many of Québec's greatest landscape artists, including Jean-Paul Lemieux and Clarence Gagnon, have depicted the area, and a selection of these works is on show here (some are also for sale). The gallery was Gagnon's former studio and also the home of painter René Richard for the last 43 years of his life. Guided tours of the studio are available for groups.

If you need a map of Mont-Royal's extensive hiking trails or want to know about the animals and more than 180 kinds of birds that make their home in the park, the former park keeper's residence is the place to go. It's also a good spot for getting a snack, drink, or souvenir. The pretty little stone house—built in 1858—is the headquarters of Les Amis de la Montagne (The Friends of the Mountain), a non-profit organization that offers various guided walks—including moonlight snowshoe excursions and cross-country ski lessons in winter around the mountain and in nearby areas.  Note that at time of writing, Maison Smith had been closed since December 2024 for an indeterminate period due to renovation work.

Thick stone walls, a steep roof, and mullioned windows mark the Maison St-Gabriel as one of Montréal's rare surviving 17th-century houses. But it's the interior and the furnishings that will sweep you back to the colonial days when St. Marguerite Bourgeoys and the religious order she founded used this house to train les filles du roy (king's daughters) in the niceties of home management. Les filles were young women without family or fortune but plenty of spunk who volunteered to cross the Atlantic in leaky boats to become the wives and mothers of New France. It wasn't an easy life, as the Maison's hard narrow beds, primitive utensils, and drafty rooms attest—but it had its rewards, and the prize at the end was a respectable, settled life. St. Marguerite also had some state-of-the-art domestic equipment—the latest in looms and butter churns, labor-saving spit turners for roasting meat, and an ingenious granite sink with a drainage system that piped water straight out to the garden. Located on the little island of New France and deep in the gentrifying working-class neighborhood of Pointe-St-Charles, Maison St-Gabriel is off the beaten path, but it's well worth a 10-minute taxi ride from Old Montréal.

World War I and the Depression killed early 20th-century plans to turn this industrial center into a model city with broad boulevards, grand public buildings, and fine homes, but just three blocks south of the Olympic site a few fragments of that dream have survived the passage of time.

A magnificent Beaux Arts building, site of the old public market, which has a 20-foot-tall bronze statue of a farm woman, stands at the northern end of tree-lined avenue Morgan. Farmers and butchers have moved into the modern building next door that houses the Marché Maisonneuve, which has become one of the city's major markets, along with Marché Jean-Talon and Marché Atwater. The old market is now a community center and the site of summer shows and concerts.

Monumental staircases and a heroic rooftop sculpture embellish the public baths across the street. The Théâtre Denise Pelletier, at the corner of rues Ste-Catherine Est and Morgan, has a lavish Italianate interior; Fire Station No. 1, at 4300 rue Notre-Dame Est, was inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple in suburban Chicago; and the sumptuously decorated Église Très-Saint-Nom-de-Jésus, has one of the most powerful organs in North America. The 198-acre Parc Maisonneuve, stretching north of the botanical garden, is a lovely place for a stroll.

St-Jean's beautiful Normandy-style manor was built in 1734 for Jean Mauvide, the surgeon to Louis XV, and his wife, Marie-Anne Genest. The most notable thing about this house, which still has its original thick walls, ceiling beams, and fireplaces, is the degree to which it has held up over the years. The house serves as an interpretation center of New France's seigneurial regime, with 18th-century furniture, a historic vegetable garden, a multimedia presentation, and tours with guides dressed in 18th-century costumes.

You can't buy fruits and vegetables in the Marché Bonsecours anymore, but you can view an exhibit; shop for local fashions, crafts, and souvenirs in the row of upscale boutiques that fill its main hall; lunch in one of the cafés or restaurants; or grab a craft beer. But the marché is best admired from the outside. Built in the 1840s as the city's main market, it is possibly the most beautifully proportioned neoclassical building in Montréal, with its six cast-iron Doric columns and two rows of meticulously even sash windows, all topped with a silvery dome. Perhaps the marché was too elegant to be just a farmers' market.

David Ross McCord (1844–1930) was a wealthy pack rat with a passion for anything that had to do with Montréal or Canadian history. His collection of paintings, costumes, toys, tools, drawings, and housewares provides a glimpse of what city life was like for all classes in the 19th century. If you're interested in the lifestyles of the elite, however, you'll love the photographs that William Notman (1826–91) took of the rich at play. One series portrays members of the posh Montréal Athletic Association posing in snowshoes on the slopes of Mont-Royal, all decked out in Hudson Bay coats and woolen hats. Each of the hundreds of portraits was shot individually in a studio and then painstakingly mounted on a picture of the snowy mountain to give the impression of a winter outing. The McCord Stewart Museum's mission is to showcase life in Montréal, past and present. There are guided tours (call for schedule), a reading room, a documentation center, a gift shop, a bookstore, and a café. 

Merchant and fur trader James McGill would probably be horrified to know that the university that he helped found in 1828 has developed an international reputation as one of North America's top party schools. McGill also happens to be one of the two or three best universities in Canada, and certainly one of the prettiest. Its campus is an island of grass and trees in a sea of traffic and skyscrapers. The statue of James McGill himself was removed in Summer 2021 after several bouts of vandalism aimed at the representation of the deceased slave owner. Take the time to stroll up the drive that leads from the Greek Revival Roddick Gates to the austere neoclassical Arts Building and meander over to the splendid Romanesque Redpath Hall building. McGill's first dedicated library is now a grand 300-seat concert hall ( www.mcgill.ca/music/about-us/halls/redpath-hall), though the newer library building next door still bears the generous benefactor's name. If you have an hour or so, drop into the temple-like Redpath Museum of Natural History ( www.mcgill.ca/redpath) to browse its eclectic collection of dinosaur bones, old coins, African art, and shrunken heads.

A chain of about 30 limestone islands and about 1,000 islets and reefs stretches for about 160 km (100 miles) along the coast and river estuaries, displaying natural rock monoliths formed by the constant erosion caused by the forces of wind and sea. Forests, barrens, peat bogs, and beaches weave through the surreal landscape. A menagerie of animals—seals, dolphins, whales, and oh so many birds—populate this utopia where kayaking, fishing, boating, scuba diving, and photo opportunities abound. Various guided tours tell the archipelago’s stories. There are reception and interpretation centers in Havre-St. Pierre (1010 promenade des Anciens) and Longue-Pointe-de-Mingan (625 rue du Centre), both open mid-June to early September.

Slides, a giant wave pool, a wading pool, and snack bars will all keep the kids occupied here. The river rafting attracts an older, braver crowd; the nine-minute ride follows the natural contours of steep hills. On the tandem slides, plumes of water flow through figure-eight tubes and make for a great time. But if you'd rather stay dry, take an adventure through the trees on the zip line or enjoy a fast ride with the Viking Alpine Coaster.

Seemingly suspended between Upper and Lower Town, Montmorency Park is an essential stop for visitors navigating Côte de la Montagne. This leafy urban oasis once played a pivotal role in Canadian history, serving as home to the Parliaments of Lower Canada, Canada East, and Québec from 1791 to 1883. While few structures from that era remain, it's now a cherished national historic site, inviting visitors to wander among centenary trees and explore walkways adorned with interpretive panels detailing the site's profound significance. Along its southeastern edge, the park meets the ancient ramparts and defensive walls, offering breathtaking panoramic views of Lower Town and the St. Lawrence River.