MacGougan at Large
Notes on a Trip to Québec City - 2
The Iconic Hotel
Some cities are known to the world by a single, unmistakable structure. If you see the Eiffel Tower or the Leaning Tower or the Space Needle or the Gateway Arch, you know what city you’re looking at.
Québec City is known for a big, castle-like hotel called the Château Frontenac. It was originally built by the Canadian Pacific railroad company in the 1890s and has been added to several times since. The architecture was modeled on the châteaux of the Loire Valley in France.
It claims to be the hotel in all the world that appears most often in social media photographs - and I don’t doubt it. I took a couple of hundred pictures during our stay in the city. The Frontenac has a starring role in maybe a third of them.
In another third of them, it’s looking over the shoulder of - and shamelessly stealing attention away from - whatever I else I was photographing.
Any wide view of the city is inevitably going to be anchored by the hotel.
Want a souvenir of your visit? Maybe a tree ornament.
Or a snow globe.
Or a model.
It makes you wonder how people living there before the 1890s even knew that they were in Québec City.
The chateau is a unique hotel, indeed. I have stayed there several times, starting with my high school’s French club trip there.
My husband and I spent our honeymoon and 25th anniversary there.some interesting features I have learned about the place…
It was built as part of several other hotels across Canada as part of the railroad expansion west. There are other similar grand hotels across Canada.
Another interesting feature… we took a guided tour of the building. There is one hallway that borders a street. The street has a curve… so does the hallway, and building!
Just a beautiful city. Tres bien!
What’s going on with all those umbrellas?