3 Best Sights in Quebec City, Quebec

Styled after the Empire State Building, this 17-story, art deco structure was the city's first skyscraper when it was built in 1929. It served as headquarters of the Price Brothers Company, a lumber firm founded by Sir William Price, and today is an official residence of the premier of Québec, who uses the top two floors.

This graded stone house (which is actually three houses brought together) was built in 1752 for the shipowner Jean-Baptiste Chevalier. This location near the docks was popular with import-export merchants and, later, with innkeepers. The architecture is quintessential New France, with its mansards and scarlet roof. Although the building is not open to visitors, it's well worth a look from the outside.

Louis Jolliet, the first European to see the Mississippi River, and his fellow explorers used this 1683 house as a base for westward journeys. Today it's the lower station of the funicular. A monument commemorating Jolliet's 1672 trip to the Mississippi stands in the small park next to the house, which is at the foot of the Escalier Casse-Cou (Breakneck Staircase).