Montréal and Quebec City- 10 day trip planning

This sounds like a wonderful plan. It's been years since I was in Montreal, excluding going for a funeral late last year.
For downtown Montreal, I don't know what you mean by Jazz? The Jazz festival runs in the summer, June I think, though that is easy enough to check.

In QC, Monastere des Augustines is a hotel now- not sure how much of the original monastery there is to see. The Ursulines convent is a museum now that I visited during my 2024 trip to QC. Montmorency Falls is very nice to see - it's a short trip out of QC. QC isn't a huge city - the falls are 13 km outside of the city - you can take a city bus to get there or take a fancy coach bus for a lot more money. I didn't take a tour of the Chateau Frontenac. Walking near it at street level, it doesn't seem as impressive as it seems from the popular photos that show it from the lower town and you see it sitting on the escarpment. Just my opinion.

If Via Rail was time reliable I would suggest that but the rail line is shared with freight trains which get priority so there is a good chance that the train will be delayed. You will have to decide if you can take the risk of a extra long train ride

Be aware that winters in Montreal and Quebec City are long and cold. April days may be long but it won't be warm, unless there is a day or two of a spring tease of warmer weather; it can still snow in April. I visited in late April 2024 for 4 days - my first day there had a early spring snow storm - about 2-3 inches of snow in a few hours, most had melted by late evening. A few days later it was up to 17C m the warmest day I was there. The other days, I was wearing my down puffer coat, hat and gloves.

Late June, July and August are warm and humid - high 20s Celsius with 60% humidity so it feels much warmer.

May and early June or September would have smaller crowds, and less likely to be very hot and humid. There is a provincial holiday in May - Monday, 18th in 2026, so many sites would be closed that day.

I was in Quebec in October 2024. About the third week of October. The fall colors were breathtaking. And the days were sunny and bright. Just fantastic. I didn't find the city crowded, busy yes, but not crowded.

I recommend a visit to the Musee de la Civilisation.

I also took a little tour boat out on the Saint Lawrence river. I just thought it was cool to be out on a river I learned about as a kid.

I traveled to Montreal and Quebec City three times (2015, 2022 and 2025) on a very similar itinerary. Because it was difficult to fly in/out of Quebec City we took Via Rail between cities and it worked extremely well. We flew to Montreal and stayed 3-4 days before taking the train to QC and staying 3-4 days there and then returned to Montreal. On each trip I booked first class train tickets quite far in advance from Montreal-QC on the ~12:30-4 train and we had a very good lunch with wine and there were no problems.

On each of our trips we did a food tour in Montreal. I believe the company was Local Montreal Food Tours. We did the food tours of Mile End neighborhood and Old Montreal and each tour guide was excellent and the food venues were fantastic. In addition to discussing food the guides were knowledgeable of the area history and culture.

The transportation choices in both cities (subway and city bus) were easy to navigate. With the exchange rate in our favor we thought the prices were good. One trip was in May and two trips were in September so the weather was nice. We’ve been to Canada many times but this is one of my favorite itineraries.

Fall colors— particularly late September into October— are spectacular in Quebec province. Summer can be hot & humid.
Montreal is a lot of fun and demands more time to see than small. historic Quebec City. You might want to calendar six nights in Montreal and three nights in Quebec City.
The bus between the two cities is what we took because it was convenient to catch the bus at Montreal’s Berri-UQAM station.

You have received some good advice above, some additional thoughts from me as someone who used to live in Montreal:

-Winters are absolutely brutal. When I lived there it would regularly get to -40C in winters. It starts getting cold around October and doesn't start to warm up until really late April. I would visit in the summer. I was there last August and the weather was very nice- it was definitely NOT too hot as I was wearing a light jacket most of time. The summer also has a lot of festivals normally so you can check if there are any that interest you when you're visiting.
-As said above, it's very easy to get between Montreal and Quebec City on the bus from Berri-UQAM.
-Jean-Talon market is nice but I'm not sure it's all that different an experience to Atwater. You could think about rearranging your itinerary a bit to spend some time in/around Verdun. Wellington Street was named "the coolest street in the world" a few years ago: https://www.timeout.com/montreal/news/its-official-rue-wellington-in-montreal-named-coolest-street-in-the-world-082522

Good luck with your planning and bon voyage.

Thank you all for the great ideas and suggestions, especially about timing. I think this trip will be for the beginning part of June. Avoiding crowds and heat are top of my concerns so I will not go during festival season or fall foliage time. For a bit of context, my formative childhood years were spent in NY, NH and VT, so I’m aware of how beautiful the colors can be. For this trip, I won’t focus on Fall colors just because i want to avoid crowds and high prices. As far as cold temps, I don’t mind it so much, and can’t stand to be too hot. September is a good suggestion but I have a trip to gather with Forum members in Idaho during that time, so September is out.

Thank you for your suggestions of the Musee de la Civilization, boat tour down the St Lawrence, the day trip out to Montmorency Falls, explore Rue Wellington and a possible food tour. All of these ideas were not on my radar, but I will certainly look into all of them. The research continues - maybe I need more time for the trip.

My note for jazz was more an idea to find some live music venue somewhere in either Montréal or QC for an early evening out. I don’t particularly enjoy a club scene, especially if it’s very late at night, so I would appreciate some suggestions from you all for live music venues. The Casa del Popolo looks interesting. Anybody know of this place?

Rail vs bus between the two cities- seems like the consensus here is that the bus would be more reliable time-wise. You’ve suggested the bus from Beri-UQAM. Is that the place or the name of the bus service? The bus service I have found is called Orleans Express leaving from the center of both cities. Is this service what you would suggest? Or something else?

Keep the suggestions coming - I’ll note them down in my TripIt app and move things around as I plan. Thank you once again.

It's been a very long time since I've been but I do remember enjoying Casa del Popolo and La Sala Rossa. There is so much great live music in general around Montreal.

For the bus, the bus station as at the metro stop called Berri-UQAM (UQAM being Univeristé de Québec à Montréal). They renovated the bus station there a few years ago and it's even bigger and more modern now. It's called Gare d'autocars de Montréal. I don't remember the name of the bus service but it sounds like you have found the right one!

You will need to find out the dates for the Jazz Festival - it's very popular so the city will be busier during that part of the summer.

If you have been to Niagara Falls, the surroundings of Montmorency Falls is unlike that of Niagara Falls. It's outside of the city though still near suburban housing yet it's situated in a natural park like setting, other than the fancy, old house that sits close by on one side of the top of the falls - it has a souvenir shop, restaurant (wasn't open when I was there - probably too early in the season). Montmorency Falls would only be about a half day It's about 30 minutes each way on the city bus. How much time you spend there depends much on if you take the cable car to the bottom of the falls and walk across the lower bridge and to the walking path on the opposite side or just stay on the upper half.

I was very impressed on how the Museum of Civilization made its displays for the exhibits. A lot of effort was made to have interactive elements and setting the culture and time periods/ time span surrounding the exhibit topic.

In May 2025 we visited the McCord Stewart Museum in Montreal and saw a wonderful street photography exhibit. You may want to see what exhibition are on during your visit.

Found out the jazz festival is set to begin in late June. So, I’m happy that my plan is to go End of May, early June.

No experience with Niagara Falls but will really try to get to Montmorency Falls

Thanks for the mention of McCord museum. I’ll look into it

We were just there this year the first two weeks of October - along with a bit more of Quebec province. The colors were indeed magical, and the weather really nice, only one day with two hours of rain.