Can someone recommend a city in Canada that would be a great place (lots to see historical and otherwise) for a family to visit for about 3 or 4 days? Appreciate your thoughts.

jek: What time of year? The Calgary (Alberta) Stampede is excellent fun and Calgary is a short drive from wonderful Banff/Lake Louise area.

we would be going this July

Halifax has a wonderful fort, you can drive up to Cape Breton and see more historical sites
Quebec City is a beautiful historic old city. The culture is very different and fascinating
St. John in New Brunswick also has a fair number of historical sites to see
Ottawa is the most interesting city in Ontario.
Most of the historical sites are back east.
The prettier cities in Canada are Vancouver and Victoria. There is so much to see and do in both cities that you could easily spend more than 3 or 4 days in each.

jek It will be hot, humid, and muggy in Ontario. If you do not like humidity, I would suggest that you go either to the Maritime provinces, Nova Scotia or New Brunswick or to the west coast, British Columbia

Caitie The accommodation for the Calgary Stampede is probably all booked up by now. You would not be able to get a hotel. You would have to stay a good distance from the city in order to have a bed to sleep on.

quote:

Originally posted by Caitie:
jek: What time of year? The Calgary (Alberta) Stampede is excellent fun and Calgary is a short drive from wonderful Banff/Lake Louise area.

My son in law was on a business trip to Calgary during the stampede (in 06), he flew home with jeans, boots, big hat, he had a blast.

Californian Calgarians know how to party.

Here's the Stampede: http://cs.calgarystampede.com/
BIG fun! If you fly into Calgary, they "brand" you at the airport. Cowboy gear is compulsory. If you don't arrive wearing it, you'll leave wearing it, right, Californian?
During Stampede Week, there are free Stampede breakfasts all over town. All kinds of churches and businesses offer pancakes and sausage breakfasts and you'll see people lined up everywhere to sample the fun. Accommodation might be difficult, though, so check out B&B listings if you can't find a hotel.

If it's historical interest you want, our most interesting city is Quebec City, Quebec. It's a designated U.N. world heritage site. The old 16th c city is simply wonderful and one can't say enough about the food of course--anywhere you eat in Quebec City. Lovely, lovely people as well. and the seat of the province's legislature, a magnificent building. Most famous hotel is the Chateau Frontenac overlooking the river. There's lots of historical interest more than in any other part of Canada since it was here on the Plains of Abraham overlooking the St Lawrence river that the decisive battle that really shaped the country took place. As it says on their licence plates: "Je me souviens."

The Calgary Stampede is great but a kind of Western U.S. rodeo. Calgary is of course very close to the Rockies.

Brenda, better give a warning about French speaking Canada, though, (similar conversation in another forum), Several years ago, when shopping in Montreal, the door alarm went off and we had to come back and be searched, my little French did not help, all I could said (then)was oui, nobody, NOBODY came in my help, do they not speak English in Montreal? seems that they do not like americans... anyway I still love Canada, did not make it to Quebec City though, next time.

Californian; Don't take it personnally. Quebecers do speak English if they so choose. We have found that they choose not to. For a bilingual country,as Canada is, Quebec seems to do their own thing. As a Canadian I find that the shopkeepers in Quebec choose to be rude if you do not speak their language.

I LOVED Quebec City. What an interesting, charming place with a fascinating history. I would go there again in a heartbeat. The Chateau Frontenac is worth seeing, built more than 100 years ago for Canadian Pacific.

Californian I think you will find that in Quebec City they are more willing to speak English than Montreal. I just used my broken French and smiled and it was amazing how accommodating they became. In Montreal they did refuse to speak any English but a little trick is to take the English word, add an "ee" sound to the end of it and it is pretty close to Quebecois which is what they speak. They do not speak true French in the province. It is Frenchified English which is about the best description I can give of it.

Everyone: Rest assured that Montreal and Quebec City are very different entities in the way they conduct their language and culture politics and there are valid (in my opinion) historical reasons for that as well. In Quebec City, nearly everyone one meets in the service or tourist arenas speak English; however as has been said elsewhere, a few words in French go a long way.

In Montreal having been so long under an Anglo maitre (Caitie, imagine the circumflex over the "i") that it's almost a point of pride, even if they speak English, not to. But to be honest, while I do my darndest to speak French when we're there, they insist on answering in English. Either it's my dreadful "Quebec" accent (the French does sound quite different) or they're just being polite.