Travel

Fun and fiesta await at Canada's French Heritage celebration

Fun and fiesta await at Canada's French Heritage celebration

| | 03 Jul 2016, 02:20 pm
It's time again to turn back time during the Fêtes de la Nouvelle-France, which celebrates Canada's French Heritage- when the days of Canada's first European settlers come to life amid the real-life backdrop of historic Old Quebec City.

Narrow alleyways and cobblestone streets are a 17th and 18th-century stage crowded with perfume sellers, rat-catchers, petty thieves, bartering merchants, barber/surgeons and hurdy-gurdy musicians.



People during the festival are invited to dress in period costume and become part of the festival. People get a chance to hear the clang of a blacksmith at his forge.



It's time to carve arrowheads with the Huron-Wendat people and grab a bow and try your hand at archery.



One can become a town crier or an archaeologist searching for hidden artifacts and smell gunpowder after musket shots are fired.



This festival gives a chance to create one's own family’s coat of arms.



Several events take place in seven old Québec City indoor and outdoor locations — all within walking distance — as well as in the streets.



People can meet a six metre-tall giant named Champlain during a grand parade.



making it attractive for tourists, an official statement said: "Dining on local Quebec cuisine from pastries to duck confit. Slip on a wig and becoming snobbish French nobility for a day. Sample Irish whiskeys paired with Quebec cheeses and learning about the Irish role in New France. Chat with a hangman and his wife. Encounter free Cirque du Soleil performances in the streets. Sip frosty Quebec cider in a grand hotel that thinks it’s a castle, Le Chateau Frontenac."



"Ride through the cobblestone streets of a UNESCO World Heritage Site in a horse-drawn carriage. Sail on an evening ferry across the St. Lawrence River to admire the twinkling lights and dramatic setting of the only walled city north of Mexico," it said.