I have lost count of the hotels I have written up over twelve years, but I can count on one hand the ones that made me stop on the pavement and simply look up. The Château Frontenac is on that hand. Rising in copper-roofed turrets above the St. Lawrence, it is said to be the most photographed hotel in the world, and standing in the Place d'Armes at dusk, camera-less for once, I understood why. It does not look like a hotel. It looks like the reason a city exists.

Opened in 1893 and named for a French governor of New France, it is the grande dame of Old Québec — a UNESCO-listed quarter that unfolds from its doorstep in cobbled lanes and church spires. To stay here is to sleep inside the postcard, and after three nights I can tell you the interior mostly lives up to the silhouette.

Grandeur, and the reality of a heritage room

The public spaces are magnificent — soaring, panelled, gently theatrical — and the service carries the warmth that turns grandeur into hospitality. On my anniversary trip (I confess a personal weakness for this place) the staff sent up chocolates and a small bottle of prosecco without being asked. Guests report the same again and again: thoughtful people who remember the occasion. Breakfast is excellent, the Fairmont Gold lounge a genuine cut above, and a St. Lawrence view from your window is worth every effort to secure.

Now, the honest part. This is a 130-year-old building, and heritage has trade-offs. Some standard rooms are compact — one guest measured theirs at sixteen square metres — with small bathrooms and air-conditioning that hums the way old systems do. A motion-sensor minibar has caught more than one guest out with a surprise charge, so mind your elbows. And because the lobby is a bona fide attraction, it can fill with day-trippers; the trick is to retreat upstairs, where the hotel becomes yours again.

You are not merely booking a room here. You are borrowing a piece of Canadian history for the night — creaks, quirks and all.

Setting the standard for location

No hotel I know sits more perfectly inside its city. Step out and you are on the Dufferin Terrace, the boardwalk that runs along the cliff with the river glittering below; turn the other way and Old Québec's restaurants and boutiques are a two-minute stroll. For a traveller who wants to walk everywhere and return to something splendid, the Frontenac's position is close to unimprovable.

The spa and indoor pool are a lovely refuge after a day on the cobbles, and Bar 1608 pours one of the more atmospheric cocktails in the province. If I have a note, it is that a hotel charging a premium should not ask guests to jump through a Wi-Fi registration hoop — a small friction that a handful of guests, reasonably, resent.