Better With Age By Sarah Lolley Jan 1, 2008

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As Quebec City rolls out the welcome mat for its 400^th birthday, Sarah Lolley explores the famed charms and curiosities of North America’s most European city. But before she breaks out the birthday cake, there’s next month’s Carnaval to celebrate first. Mon dieu, things are heating up this winter

Three hours in Quebec City and I’ve already landed myself in jail. Just down the dark hall are 11 solitary confinement cells, each one inhumanely small and barricaded with a heavy wrought-iron gate. The floors are bare stone. But I seem to be doing all right, given the situation.

I am, after all, surrounded by Picassos.

The lighting is soft and tasteful, and the security guards smile pleasantly. My inmates? A retired couple from Santa Barbara, holding hands, and a group of adorable young schoolchildren seated cross-legged on the floor, enraptured with the tour guide’s explanations of the paintings.

In a city whose 400 years of history are just a casual part of everyday life—a city that wears its UNESCO World Heritage Site designation like a pair of comfortable old slippers—should I really be surprised that part of the Beaux-Arts Museum is a 19^th-Century prison?

This isn’t my first discovery of the day—it starts in the morning when I reach my hotel, Auberge Saint-Antoine in the lower part of Old Quebec. Right there on the street is a wavy pattern of flagstones marked “1700.” A few feet onwards toward the water is a second marked “1800.”
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