Montmorency Falls and Mont-Sainte-Anne: the north-shore day from Quebec City

The Côte-de-Beaupré, in a day

The Côte-de-Beaupré is the north shore of the St. Lawrence east of Quebec City — the old road of the Avenue Royale along the cliff's foot through the villages of Beauport, Boischatel, Château-Richer and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, with the Autoroute 440 and the 138 beside it — and it holds, within thirty minutes of the Old City, four of the province's landmarks: Montmorency Falls, the eighty-three-metre curtain where the Montmorency River drops into the St. Lawrence beside the island bridge, with a suspension bridge across its lip, a cable car from the base to the top and a staircase of four hundred and eighty-seven steps beside it; the Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, the pilgrimage church of 1923 whose crutches on the pillars have been left by the healed since the 1600s; the Canyon Sainte-Anne, a gorge of the Sainte-Anne River with three suspension bridges above a seventy-four-metre falls; and Mont-Sainte-Anne, the ski hill with the province's longest season and a summer gondola to a summit over the river. A family in its own car does the falls; a family in a chauffeured Sprinter does all four, because the vehicle is at each door and nobody hunts the lots.

Montmorency Falls

The falls are a Sépaq park with two entrances: the base, from the 440's Boischatel exit, with the lot, the cable car's lower station and the boardwalk to the pool where the mist reaches; and the top, from the Avenue Royale, with the Manoir Montmorency's restaurant and terrace, the suspension bridge across the lip, the Baronne's lookout and the top of the stairs. The family's hour and a half is the base's boardwalk, the cable car up, the bridge across, the stairs down for the fit and the cable car for the rest — with the chauffeur at the base lot and the Luxury SUV waiting where the family finishes; in winter the falls' spray builds the Sugar Loaf, the cone of ice at the base that the ice climbers use and the families photograph. The Sépaq site has the park's fees and the cable car's hours; the via ferrata across the cliff and the zipline over the falls are the teenagers' upgrade.

The basilica

Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré's basilica, twenty minutes east on the 138, is one of the continent's great pilgrimage churches — twin spires, a nave of mosaics and stained glass, the pillars at the entrance hung with the crutches and braces of the healed, the Scala Santa across the road and the Way of the Cross on the hill — with the July 26 feast of Sainte Anne filling the village with pilgrims and the year's Sundays with the region's Catholic families. Vaughan's Italian, Filipino and Portuguese families make it the day's reason; the chauffeur drops at the basilica's plaza and the lot is beside it.

The Canyon Sainte-Anne

Six kilometres past the basilica, the Canyon Sainte-Anne is a private park on the Sainte-Anne River where the river drops seventy-four metres into a gorge of the Canadian Shield's oldest rock, crossed by three suspension bridges — one at the top of the falls, one across the middle of the gorge, one at the bottom — with a trail loop of an hour and a half through the forest and the lookouts, and a via ferrata and a zipline for the teenagers. It is the family's afternoon after the basilica and before Mont-Sainte-Anne; the lot is at the gate.

Mont-Sainte-Anne

Mont-Sainte-Anne is the Beaupré coast's mountain — the ski hill with the longest season in the province, night skiing, seventy-odd runs on three faces, a village of condominiums and hotels at the base, and in summer a gondola to the summit's view over the river and the island, mountain-bike trails and the hiking. A Vaughan family's Quebec winter week skis it from the Old City with the Sprinter's thirty-minute drive each morning, or stays at the base; the summer day is the gondola at four when the light is on the river. The resort's site has the season and the lift tickets.

The sugar shacks, in March

The Côte-de-Beaupré and the Île d'Orléans are sugar-bush country and in March and April the cabanes à sucre open for the season's meals — the pea soup, the ham, the oreilles de crisse, the sugar pie, the maple taffy on snow — with the family at a long table and the sleigh ride after; a Vaughan family's Easter-week Quebec trip books a sugar shack's lunch as the day's centre with the falls before it, and the chauffeur, who has driven the concession roads, finds the shack. The Québec Cité site lists the shacks with reservations.

The day, in shape

From the Old City at 8:30: the falls' base at 8:45, the cable car, the bridge, the stairs, the Manoir's terrace for a coffee by 10:30; the Avenue Royale east through Château-Richer's old houses; the basilica at 11:15; lunch in Sainte-Anne's village; the canyon's loop at one; Mont-Sainte-Anne's gondola at three thirty; the city by five thirty. Nine hours inside the Quebec week's daily hire; in March the sugar shack replaces the canyon.

What the chauffeur replaces

Four lots on a road with four landmarks; the falls' top-and-base problem, which a chauffeured family solves by being dropped at one and collected at the other; the basilica's plaza on a feast day; and the drive back to the Old City's one-way streets. It is inside the week's fare, and it is the day that makes the daily hire the better booking over a return pair for a family that came for more than the walls.

Seasons

Summer for the gondola, the canyon's bridges and the falls at full flow; October for the Beaupré coast's colour with the falls in it; winter for Mont-Sainte-Anne's season and the falls' Sugar Loaf; March and April for the sugar shacks; July 26 for the basilica's feast. The falls run in every month.

Pairing it

The day pairs with Île d'Orléans at the falls' bridge, with Charlevoix as the road's continuation, and with the Quebec City week as its first vehicle day; the loop does it on its last morning.

The winter day, in order

A family of five from Woodbridge on a February Quebec week: the Sprinter from the Old City at 8:15 with the skis in the bay, Mont-Sainte-Anne's base at 8:50 for the ski school's nine o'clock start and the parents' morning on the south side; lunch at the base; the hill until 2:30; Montmorency's top entrance at 3:15 for the Sugar Loaf — the ice cone at the base seen from the bridge, the ice climbers on the falls' frozen edges — and the Manoir's terrace hot chocolate; the city by 4:45. In March the same day trades the hill's afternoon for a sugar shack's lunch at Château-Richer, reserved in February, with the sleigh ride and the taffy on the snow; the Québec Cité site lists the shacks, and the chauffeur has driven the concession roads to them.

The Avenue Royale, for the drive

The Avenue Royale is the old road of 1734 along the cliff's foot from Beauport to Sainte-Anne — the oldest road in the country still in use, through the stone houses of Château-Richer and L'Ange-Gardien with their bread ovens in the yards and the river below — and the chauffeur takes it rather than the 138 for the twenty minutes between the falls and the basilica when the family has the time; it is the drive that makes the Beaupré coast a region rather than a highway.

Costs, plainly

The Beaupré day is inside a Quebec week's daily hire and costs the family the falls' park fee, the cable car, the canyon's admission and the gondola — paid at the doors — and nothing for the four lots and the four drives; for a family of five it is the day that makes the daily hire the better booking over a return pair, and the booking engine shows both before the week is booked. A couple in a Premium Sedan does the falls and the basilica as a half-day rebooked from a released weekend.

From Vaughan, and the Quebec week around it

Eight hundred and fifty-eight kilometres from Vaughan is not a day trip; the falls and the mountain are the north-shore day of a Quebec City week, reached from a hotel inside the walls, with the drive out on the 401 and Autoroute 20 in eight and a half hours of practice and the routing estimate's ten and a half as the no-toll version. A family in a chauffeured Sprinter does the drive with the tables and the bay, the Old City on foot, and the Beaupré coast as the day the vehicle earns its keep — the Île d'Orléans being the other; the travel desk holds the rooms for the week and the booking engine prices the daily hire as one number.

The teenagers' version

The Beaupré coast sells its cliffs to teenagers: Montmorency's via ferrata across the falls' rock face and the zipline across the gorge in front of the curtain; the Canyon Sainte-Anne's own via ferrata, its zipline and its suspension bridges; Mont-Sainte-Anne's mountain-bike park in summer with the gondola's uplift and its night skiing in winter. A family with a fifteen-year-old books the falls' zipline in advance on the Sépaq site, the canyon's via ferrata at the gate, and the chauffeur has the family at both in the same day with the parents on the bridges and the boy on the rope.

Château-Richer and the bread ovens

Between the falls and the basilica the Avenue Royale runs through Château-Richer, a village of the 1600s whose stone houses still have their outdoor bread ovens and root cellars cut into the cliff, with the Centre d'interprétation de la Côte-de-Beaupré in the old convent explaining the coast's four centuries and a lookout over the island; a family's twenty-minute stop with the Sprinter on the village's shoulder, and the reason the chauffeur takes the old road rather than the 138.

Booking it

Booked inside a Quebec City daily hire — tell us the day, the basilica if it matters, the canyon, the gondola or the hill, the sugar shack's reservation in March, the seats and the boots — and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before with the cable car's hours on it.

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