Place Royale - Where Quebec Began
Photo: Wilfredor, CC0 (cropped)
A stop on Old Quebec City Walking Tour, a free self-guided tour.
This small cobbled square is where it all started. In 1608 Samuel de Champlain built his Habitation, a fortified trading post, on this spot, and Quebec grew outward from here. By the 1620s it was the colony's marketplace.
After a fire swept Lower Town in 1682, merchants rebuilt in stone, and the tall houses with steep roofs and chimneys set the look you see today. In 1686 the colony's intendant placed a bust of Louis XIV here, giving the square its royal name; the bust in the centre now is a 20th-century replacement.
The stone church is Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, begun in 1687. Its name celebrates two lucky escapes: a failed English attack under William Phips in 1690 and a British fleet wrecked by storms in 1711. Bombarded in 1759, it was later restored. Look inside for the model ship hanging over the nave.
Getting here: From the bottom of the Breakneck Stairs, walk a few steps north along Rue Sous-le-Fort and turn right into the square.
Did you know?: Place Royale stood in for a French village in Steven Spielberg's 2002 film Catch Me If You Can.
Photo op: Stand by the Louis XIV bust and frame the little church with its bell turret between the old stone houses.
More on Wikipedia: Place Royale, Quebec City · Notre-Dame-des-Victoires Church · Samuel de Champlain · Louis XIV
Stops on this tour
- Dufferin Terrace - A Boardwalk on the Cliff
- Rue du Tresor - The Artists' Alley
- Notre-Dame de Quebec - Mother Church of New France
- Seminaire de Quebec - Where a University Began
- Breakneck Stairs - The Steep Way Down
- Place Royale - Where Quebec Began
- Quartier Petit Champlain - Shops Beneath the Cliff
- Old Quebec Funicular - The Easy Way Up
- Governors' Garden - One Monument, Two Generals
- The Citadelle - Star Fort on Cap Diamant
- Plains of Abraham - Thirty Minutes That Changed a Continent
- Parliament Building - Je Me Souviens
- Porte Saint-Louis - Gateway Through the Walls