Quebec City: the walled old town, the cliff and the winter

The St Lawrence is wide for most of its course and then pinches hard at this point, which is both what gave the city its name and what put a town on the promontory above. A settlement controlling a river narrowing gets fortified, and the surviving result is a continuous circuit of walls, gates and bastions enclosing the upper old town — the only such enclosure left on the continent north of Mexico, and the reason the historic district carries a UNESCO listing. What matters for a visit is that the walls are usable rather than exhibited: you can walk the top of the ramparts for a long stretch, the gates are still the way traffic enters the old quarter, and the star-shaped citadel at the highest point remains an active military site with a ceremonial changing of the guard in summer. Just outside the walls lies the enormous park that locals treat as the city's green lung — long lawns and woods along the clifftop, used for running, picnics, festival stages in summer and groomed cross-country ski tracks in winter. Walk the ramparts in the late afternoon, when the light comes up the river.

The city is stacked, and moving between its levels is half the pleasure. Upper Town holds the walled quarter: the Dufferin Terrace boardwalk running along the cliff edge with the river a long way below, the Château Frontenac's green copper roofs and turrets rising behind it, the seminary and cathedral, and a grid of narrow stone streets that were laid out for carts. Lower Town is at the base of the cliff along the water, and it is where the settlement actually began — Place Royale is the small stone square at its centre, and Rue du Petit-Champlain, a narrow pedestrian lane of shops beneath the rock face, has a decent claim to being the oldest commercial street in North America. Between the two you have a choice: the funicular, which runs up the cliff face in under a minute, or the Escalier Casse-Cou, the breakneck stairs, which is the older and steeper option and lives up to the name. The Old Port district beyond has a covered market and a working waterfront. The whole of it is compact — this is a walking city, but a vertical one, and comfortable shoes matter more here than in most old towns.

Winter in Quebec City is long, snowy and properly cold, and rather than treating it as a dead season the city organises itself around it. The Carnaval, held over two weeks at the coldest point of the year, is the largest winter carnival in the world: night parades, ice sculpture competitions, canoe races across the part-frozen river, and a snowman mascot who functions as an unofficial head of state. The Dufferin Terrace gets a long wooden toboggan slide built onto it, running straight along the cliff edge with the frozen river beyond. Cross-country tracks are groomed in the park by the walls, downhill hills sit within half an hour of town, and an ice-and-snow hotel is rebuilt each winter just outside the city. The practical corollary is that you must dress for it: layers, proper boots with grip, and something that covers the face when the wind comes up the river. Do that and the season is the best time to be here — the stone quarter under snow, with lights on and steam coming off the terraces, is the version of Quebec City that people come back for.

Just downstream from the city the Montmorency river drops off the edge of the St Lawrence valley in a single fall that is substantially higher than Niagara, if far narrower — a suspension bridge crosses directly above the lip, a staircase runs down beside the water, and a cable car saves the climb back. It is fifteen minutes from the old town and worth the trip in any season, though it is at its strangest in deep winter when spray freezes into a vast cone at the base that people climb. Immediately beyond it, Île d'Orléans sits in the middle of the river: a large agricultural island circled by a single road, still farmed, and the best short excursion from the city — strawberry and apple growers, cider makers, small producers of cheese and maple products, and stone farmhouses along the shore facing back towards the falls. In summer it is a straightforward half-day drive with stops; in spring it is where the sugar shacks are. Between the two you have the city's entire hinterland in one loop, and you never lose sight of the river.

Quebec cooking is its own tradition and is at its most distinct in winter and early spring. Poutine — chips, cheese curds and gravy — is the export, and it is genuinely better here than anywhere else because the curds are fresh enough to squeak, which is the entire point and does not survive shipping. Beyond it the repertoire is substantial: tourtière, a spiced meat pie eaten especially around the holidays; pea soup; baked beans; and a range of sugar-based desserts including tarte au sucre and pouding chômeur. The season to plan for is spring, when the maples run and the cabanes à sucre open — working sugar shacks in the countryside outside the city serve a fixed communal meal built around maple syrup, finished with tire sur la neige, hot syrup poured onto clean snow and rolled onto a stick as it sets. It is a genuine seasonal ritual rather than a show, it lasts a few weeks in March and April, and it is the single most Québécois thing available to a visitor. In the city itself the old port market is the place to buy cider, cheese and maple products from the island producers.

Québec City is overwhelmingly French-speaking, far more so than Montreal, and while the tourist quarter is comfortably bilingual, French is the language of ordinary life here — opening in French is both easy and appreciated, and the shift to English, where it happens, is a courtesy rather than the default. Getting here: Québec City Jean-Lesage (YQB) has domestic and limited international service, the train from Montreal takes around three hours along the river, and the drive is about the same. In town, the old quarter is walked; buses cover the rest, and a car is only worth having for Montmorency and the island. On seasons, there is no wrong answer but there are three different cities. Summer is warm, busy and full of festivals, with the terraces out. Autumn brings the colour along the river and the shoulder-season quiet. Winter is cold, long, and the season the city is proudest of — Carnaval, toboggans, and the old town under snow. Spring is short, muddy, and redeemed entirely by the sugar shacks.