Île d'Orléans: the island loop on a Quebec City week

The island, across the bridge

Île d'Orléans lies in the St. Lawrence just downstream of Quebec City, thirty-two kilometres long and connected to the north shore by a single bridge beside Montmorency Falls — an island of farms that Champlain's settlers began clearing in the 1650s and that Quebec calls the cradle of French America, with six villages around its shore road, the Chemin Royal: Sainte-Pétronille at the western tip facing the city, Saint-Laurent's boatyards on the south shore, Saint-Jean's captains' houses, Saint-François at the eastern tip, Sainte-Famille's church of 1743 on the north, and Saint-Pierre with the island's oldest church. It is the day of a Quebec City week that the family's vehicle exists for: the loop is a drive with forty stops, the farm stands sell what the season has — strawberries in June and July, corn and apples in September — and the cider houses pour; a family in a chauffeured Sprinter stops at all of it and nobody counts the kilometres. The island's tourism site has the producers and the churches; this post has the day.

The loop, clockwise

From the bridge the Chemin Royal is followed clockwise, which puts the river on the right and the stops in this order. Sainte-Pétronille first, at the western tip: the village of summer houses that Quebec's families built in the 1800s, the Chocolaterie de l'Île d'Orléans for the ice cream dipped in chocolate that is the island's one queue, the lookout over the city and the falls, the Vignoble Sainte-Pétronille's terrace. Saint-Laurent on the south shore: the Parc maritime's boatyard museum where the island's rowboats and schooners were built, the Forge à Pique-Assaut's blacksmith. Saint-Jean: the row of captains' houses along the river, the church on the shore with the cemetery of the pilots who guided ships up the river, the Manoir Mauvide-Genest's 1734 seigneurial house and its museum. Saint-François at the tip: the observation tower over the river's widening and the Île Madame, the picnic. Sainte-Famille on the north shore: the church of 1743 with its three bell towers, the Maison Drouin's 1730 house, the farm stands of the island's best strawberry fields, the Cassis Monna cassis house with its economusée and its terrace. Saint-Pierre: the island's oldest church of 1717, the Domaine Steinbach's cider and the Confiturerie Tigidou's jams, the bridge. Six hours with lunch; the chauffeur drives at the family's pace and turns wherever asked.

The strawberries, and the season's stands

Île d'Orléans grows Quebec's strawberries, and from mid-June to late July the island's north shore is a run of farm stands and pick-your-own fields where a Vaughan family fills the Sprinter's bay with baskets; August is the raspberries and the corn, September the apples with the orchards' pick-your-own, and October the pumpkins and the cider houses' harvest. The stands take cash and cards and sell on the honour system in the fields' quiet hours; the island site's producers' list has the seasons.

Cider, cassis, wine and the economusées

The island's drink is cider — the Cidrerie Verger Bilodeau and the Domaine Steinbach at Saint-Pierre, the Cidrerie Verger Pedneault at Saint-Pierre and Sainte-Famille, the ice ciders that are the island's specialty — with the Cassis Monna at Sainte-Famille turning blackcurrants into cassis liqueur and the island's vineyards at Sainte-Pétronille and Saint-Pierre pouring the whites; the economusées attached to several explain the craft. The chauffeur is the driver who does not taste, which is the reason the tastings happen.

The churches and the houses

Saint-Pierre's church of 1717 is the island's oldest — a plain stone church with its original interior, no longer a parish church and open as a museum — and Sainte-Famille's of 1743 the grandest, with its three towers and its painted interior; the Manoir Mauvide-Genest at Saint-Jean is the seigneurial manor of 1734 with a costumed tour and the island's history; the Maison Drouin at Sainte-Famille is a 1730 house never modernised. A family with older children does two; a family with younger ones does the boatyard and the tower.

Montmorency, on the way

The island's bridge lands beside Montmorency Falls, and the island day begins or ends with the falls — the suspension bridge across the top, the cable car, the staircase — which the Montmorency and Mont-Sainte-Anne post covers; a chauffeured family does the falls at nine and the island from ten thirty, or the island first and the falls at four when the light is behind them.

The vehicle, and the day's shape

The island's road is a two-lane country road with the stops' lots along it — some gravel, all small — and the Luxury SUV or the Sprinter drives it easily; the Sprinter's bay is the argument on a strawberry day, with the baskets and the cider cases behind the family. Boosters at $25 each stay fitted for the loop. From the Old City: 9 a.m. from the Château, the falls, the bridge, the loop with lunch at Saint-Jean or Sainte-Famille, the bridge again at four, the city by 4:30 — a day inside the Quebec week's daily hire.

What the chauffeur replaces

Not the distance — the island is fifteen minutes from the Old City — but the day: forty stops on a country road, six villages' lots, three tastings and a driver who would rather be at the stand than at the wheel. It is inside the week's fare; a family that has driven the loop in its own car with a five-year-old and a case of cider understands the case.

Seasons

June and July for the strawberries; August for the corn and the raspberries; September and October for the apples, the cider houses' harvest and the island's colour, which the north shore's road over the river is made for; December for the island's Christmas, when the churches are lit and the cider houses pour the mulled version; winter otherwise a quiet loop under snow with the river's ice beside the road. The island is a year-round drive; the stands are seasonal.

Pairing it

The island pairs with Montmorency Falls at its bridge, with Charlevoix further down the north shore for a family that continues east, and with the Quebec City week as its second vehicle day; the Ottawa-Montreal-Quebec loop does it as the loop's last full day.

A strawberry Saturday, in order

A family of five from Maple on a Quebec week in the first week of July: the Sprinter from the Château at 8:30; Montmorency's base at 8:45 for the cable car and the bridge; the island's bridge at 10:15 and the Chemin Royal west to Sainte-Pétronille for the lookout and the chocolate-dipped ice cream at 10:45 — the queue is short before eleven; Saint-Laurent's boatyard museum at 11:30 for the children's half hour; Saint-Jean's church and the captains' houses at 12:15 and lunch at the village's café; Saint-François's tower at 1:30 for the river and the picnic table; Sainte-Famille's north shore at 2:15 — the pick-your-own field for an hour with six baskets, the farm stand's cream, the Cassis Monna's terrace for the parents' tasting; Saint-Pierre's church at four and the Domaine Steinbach's ice cider; the bridge at 4:45 and the Château by five with the bay full of berries and the children asleep at the tables. Eight and a half hours inside the week's daily hire, and forty stops that a family car would have made ten of.

The island's inns and a night

Vaughan couples who want the island rather than the city book a night on it — the Auberge Le Vieux-Presbytère at Saint-Pierre, the inns at Sainte-Pétronille and Saint-Jean, the bed-and-breakfasts in the villages' old houses — with a Premium Sedan released for the evening and the loop done at the island's pace over two days; the island site lists them, and the Old City is fifteen minutes away for the dinner that the island's restaurants, good as they are, do not replace.

Costs, plainly

The island day is inside a Quebec week's daily hire and costs the family nothing beyond the stands and the tastings; for a family of five it is the day that makes the daily hire the better booking over a return pair released at the Château, and the booking engine shows both numbers before the week is booked.

Getting there from Vaughan, and the city as the base

The island is not a destination a family drives to from Vaughan on its own; it is the last day of the Quebec City week, and the week's shape decides it. The drive out is the 401 and Autoroute 20 through Kingston and Montreal's ring — eight and a half hours in practice with the Sprinter's stops, the routing estimate's ten and a half being the no-toll version — and the family sleeps inside the walls or at the Château, with the island fifteen minutes from either. A family that wants the island as its base instead sleeps in a Saint-Pierre inn and does the Old City as the day trip; the chauffeur drives the bridge either way. The Québec Cité site lists the city's neighbourhoods and the travel desk holds the room.

Sainte-Pétronille's lookout, and the falls from the island

The island's western tip at Sainte-Pétronille faces the city across the river — the Château on its cliff, the bridge, and Montmorency Falls' white curtain against the north shore, which is the view the family photographs before the Chocolaterie's queue — and the Vignoble Sainte-Pétronille's terrace above the vines has the same view with a glass in it. A chauffeured family sees it twice: at ten in the morning with the sun behind, and at 4:30 from the bridge's return with the city in the afternoon light.

The island's food, for the picnic

The island feeds the picnic that Saint-François's tower is for: a Sainte-Famille stand's strawberries and cream, a Saint-Jean bakery's bread, the Laiterie's cheese from Charlevoix at the Saint-Pierre shop, the Confiturerie's jams and the Cassis Monna's blackcurrant products; the Sprinter's cooler carries it from stand to table and the chauffeur knows which stand has the cream. A family with dietary rules tells us and the chauffeur has the stands' answers before the loop begins.

Booking it

The island is booked inside a Quebec City daily hire — tell us the day, the season's stands you want, the churches and the tastings, the seats and the picnic — and the chauffeur confirms the loop the evening before with the producers' hours on it.

Book the Quebec City week