The Ottawa–Montreal–Quebec City loop: Canada's history road, by chauffeured car

The loop, and why it is one booking

Canada's history runs along the Ottawa and the St. Lawrence, and the loop that follows it — the capital, the country's second city and its oldest — is the week that Vaughan families with children between eight and sixteen book when the school's Grade 7 and 8 curriculum has made the names real: Parliament Hill and the Museum of History; Montebello's log château and Papineau's manor; Old Montreal's Place Royale and Notre-Dame; Trois-Rivières' Ursulines; the Plains of Abraham, the Château and the walls; Montmorency and the island's farms of 1650. It is a lot of road — seventeen hundred kilometres over a week — and the chauffeured version is the reason it is a holiday rather than a drive: an Executive Sprinter with the family at the tables, the bags in the bay, the chauffeur at the wheel for every kilometre, and the cities walked from hotels the travel desk held in the spring. Each city has its own post on this site; this one is the week as one booking.

Day one: Vaughan to Ottawa

The 407 and 401 east from Thornhill at 8 a.m., Kingston's harbour for lunch and City Hall's square at 11:30, the 416 north through the farmland, the 417 into the city, the hotel by 3:30. The afternoon is Parliament Hill's grounds and the Rideau Canal's locks by the Château Laurier; the evening is the ByWard Market. The Ottawa post has the city.

Day two: Ottawa, Gatineau and the river road to Montebello

The Museum of History across the Alexandra Bridge at nine — the Grand Hall, the Children's Museum — until noon; the Canadian War Museum or the Museum of Nature until three for the older children; then Route 148 east along the Ottawa River through Thurso and Papineauville with the water beside the road, and the Fairmont Le Château Montebello's forecourt by 5:30 — the log castle's lobby fire, the pool, dinner. The Gatineau and Montebello posts have the day's pieces.

Day three: Parc Omega and Montreal

Parc Omega's gate at 9:30 with the carrots, the road at a walk with the elk at the windows, the wolves from the platforms, until 12:30; lunch at the park; Autoroute 50 east to Lachute and the 15 south into Montreal by 3:30 — the Old Montreal hotel's porte-cochère on rue Saint-Paul's perimeter, the Sprinter to the garage, the Old Port's Grande Roue and dinner. The Montreal post has the city.

Day four: Montreal

Notre-Dame's tour at nine, Place Jacques-Cartier, the Pointe-à-Callière crypt; the Sprinter at noon to the Plateau's bagels and Schwartz's; Mount Royal's lookout at three; the Olympic Park's Biodome at four for the younger ones or the Bell Centre if the Canadiens are home; the second Old Montreal night.

Day five: Trois-Rivières and Quebec City

Autoroute 40 north-shore at nine, Trois-Rivières' old town at 10:30 — the rue des Ursulines, the terrace, the Boréalis rooftop — lunch on the rue des Forges, the 40's last ninety minutes, and the Old Quebec hotel inside the walls by 2:30; the Dufferin Terrace, the funicular, Petit-Champlain, dinner on rue Saint-Jean. The Trois-Rivières and Quebec City posts have the day.

Day six: Old Quebec, the falls and the island

Old Quebec on foot in the morning — Place Royale, the ramparts, the Citadelle's guard, the Plains of Abraham — and the Sprinter at one for Montmorency Falls' bridge and cable car, then the island's bridge and the Chemin Royal's western half: Sainte-Pétronille's chocolate, Saint-Laurent's boatyard, Saint-Jean's captains' houses, a Sainte-Famille farm stand, the bridge again at six; the last dinner inside the walls. The Montmorency and Île d'Orléans posts have the afternoon.

Day seven: Quebec City to Vaughan

The long day home, or the split one: Autoroute 20 south-shore at eight, Montreal's ring at eleven, Cornwall's lunch at 12:30, Kingston at 2:30, the 401 and 407 to Thornhill by 5:30 with the children asleep from Cornwall — nine and a half hours with the Sprinter's tables; or a Kingston night for a family with young children and Sunday's three hours home. The routing estimate's ten hours is the no-toll, no-stop version.

The week, as a number

Six nights, six days of daily hire plus the two long drives, one number in the booking engine, with the hotels held by the travel desk and the family's own admissions — the museums, the park, the falls' cable car — paid at the doors. For a family of five it is the largest single booking on this site for a Canadian trip and the site is plain about what it buys: a week in which the country's history went past the window and nobody in the family drove seventeen hundred kilometres. For two families in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars, two drivers' weeks and two sets of city garages.

The vehicle

The Sprinter for a family of five or more or two families, with the bay for a week's bags and the tables for the drives; a Luxury SUV for a family of four with boosters at $25 each; the corporate version — a Vaughan company's client tour of the three cities — is the Sprinter on the corporate account with the team at the tables.

Seasons

July and August for the festivals and the island's berries; late September and the first two weeks of October for the loop's colour — the Gatineau hills, the river road, the Beaupré coast — which is the week Vaughan families book most; the Family Day week in February for Winterlude in Ottawa and the Carnaval in Quebec, a winter loop on winter tires with the chauffeur watching three provinces' forecasts; May for the tulips and the empty inns.

Extensions

The loop extends east to Charlevoix for the whales, north to Mont-Tremblant from Montreal, and south to the Eastern Townships; each adds two or three nights to the daily hire and the travel desk plans them as one week.

What the family sees, day by day, from the window

The loop's road is its own attraction and a chauffeured family watches it: the 401's Thousand Islands stretch past Gananoque; the 416's flat farms into the capital; Route 148 with the Ottawa River beside it for an hour; Autoroute 50's hills into the Laurentians' edge; the 15's descent into Montreal with the mountain's cross ahead; Autoroute 40's north shore with the St. Lawrence widening past Trois-Rivières; the Pierre-Laporte bridge with the Old City's cliff and the Château ahead; the Beaupré coast under the cliffs; the island's fields. The Sprinter's tables face each other and the windows are the size of a wall; a family in its own car sees the bumper ahead.

The three cities' hotels, held together

The travel desk holds the loop's hotels as one plan — an Ottawa hotel by the canal, the Château Montebello, an Old Montreal boutique hotel or a downtown tower, an inn inside Quebec's walls or the Château Frontenac — with the check-in times that the days' plans need and the porte-cochères the chauffeured drops use; the loop's October week and its February week fill the Old City's inns by spring, and the desk holds them then.

Costs, plainly

The week's daily hire is one number in the booking engine, the hotels are the family's own, and the admissions are paid at the doors; for a family of five it is the largest Canadian trip on this site and it buys seventeen hundred kilometres nobody in the family drove, three cities walked from their centres and a river road watched from a table. For two families in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars, two drivers' weeks and two sets of three cities' garages, and it is the version that Vaughan's Grade 8 parents book together.

The reverse loop, and the winter version

The loop runs either way and the travel desk plans it in the direction the week's dates favour: Quebec City first by the 401 and Autoroute 20's south shore in one long day — nine and a half hours with the Sprinter's stops — then Montreal, Montebello, Ottawa and the shorter drives home, which puts the longest day first while the family is fresh and the capital's museums last; or Ottawa first as the post describes, which puts the long drive at the end with the children asleep. In February the loop is Winterlude's ice sculptures and the Rideau Canal's skateway in Ottawa, Montreal's Fête des neiges on the island and the Carnaval's Bonhomme in Quebec — on winter tires, with the chauffeur watching three provinces' forecasts and the daily hire's flexibility to hold a city a day longer if the 20 closes.

What the children remember

Vaughan parents who have done the loop report the same list: the elk at the Sprinter's window at Parc Omega, the Museum of History's Grand Hall and its totem poles, the Grande Roue over the Old Port at night, Schwartz's smoked meat, the Château's turrets seen from the ferry to Lévis at dusk, the falls' bridge with the mist coming up through the boards, and the strawberries on the island. The Grade 8 curriculum's dates come later; the week is the reason they stick.

Costs, compared honestly

A family of five that drives its own car does the loop for fuel, tolls and three cities' garages — and one parent's week at the wheel of seventeen hundred kilometres, the Old City's one-way streets, Montreal's ring in the evening and Ottawa's canal-side parking. The chauffeured week is a larger number and the booking engine shows it before the week is booked; it buys a week in which nobody in the family drove, three cities entered by their porte-cochères and a river road watched from a table — and for two families sharing the Sprinter it comes close to the cost of two cars' week, which is why the Grade 8 parents book it together.

Booking it

Book a daily hire from your Vaughan address for the loop with the nights and the hotels, the days' plans and the direction; tell us the seats, the loads and the school-age children's ages, and the chauffeur confirms each day's plan the evening before with the road's forecast on it.

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