How long does it take to get to Le Monastère des Augustines from New York?

About five hours door to door: 30 minutes to Newark without traffic, a United flight of 1 hour 45 minutes to Quebec City, then about 23 minutes by car to Old Quebec.

Is breakfast at Le Monastère des Augustines really silent?

Yes. Breakfast at Le Vivoir, from 7 to 9:30 a.m., is served in silence and included in every package. Elsewhere silence is your choice, and reception has a name tag that tells others you are keeping it.

What is an Authentic room?

A restored room once used by the Augustinian sisters: one or two extra-long single beds, a wooden wardrobe, a small desk and a sink, with a bathroom for your use on the floor. There is no TV and no phone.

What time is check-in?

From 4 p.m. Departure is before noon, and the house will keep your bags on request.

Is there parking at Le Monastère des Augustines?

A few spaces at C$26 a day, which cannot be reserved. The Quebec City train station is about a quarter mile from the main entrance.

Monastère des Augustines, Quebec City: sleep in silence

Friday, 12:30 p.m.

Out of Midtown, into the sisters’ wing

Le Monastère des Augustines, at 77 rue des Remparts in Old Quebec City, serves breakfast in silence. It is a weekend from New York without a television, a telephone in the room or a word at the first meal of the day. Count about five hours door to door.

Leave Midtown at half past twelve. Newark is 17 miles away, about 30 minutes without traffic, more on a Friday. United’s 2:56 p.m. lands in Quebec City at 4:41. A car takes about 23 minutes to the old town. Rooms are ready from four, and you are in yours around half past five. If you can leave in the morning, United’s 10:05 a.m. lands at noon and gives you the afternoon in the old town.

The house occupies the old wings of the Hôtel-Dieu de Québec. Three Augustinian sisters from Dieppe arrived here on August 1, 1639, and founded what the house calls the first hospital in America north of Mexico. The monastery opened to the public on August 1, 2015, after more than two years of work. Some sisters still live in a wing nearby.

The main entrance of Le Monastère des Augustines at dusk: a lit glass pavilion between old stone wings, a green copper roof, a tree in the courtyard.

Friday, 6 p.m.

The room to ask for

There are two kinds of room. Ask for an Authentic one: a former sister’s room, restored, with exposed beams, a deep window, a wooden wardrobe, a small desk and a sink with a mirror. The bathroom is yours alone, but it is on the floor, down the corridor. From C$164 a night for one, C$209 for two.

Know this before you book. The Authentic rooms have one or two extra-long single beds, nothing wider. For one big bed and a bathroom inside the room, take a Contemporary room, from C$244 for two: a king, a queen or two extra-long singles, and a full bathroom. They were built during the restoration, and were never anyone’s cell. The Michelin Guide lists the house among its hotels for 2025.

Neither has a television or a telephone. A phone for reception waits on the floor. There is no fridge either. The house asks you to bring indoor shoes and a water bottle. Children are welcome; pets, candles and incense are not.

An Authentic room: white walls under old wooden beams, an iron bed with a patchwork quilt, a deep window with its shutters open. A corridor of the old wing: a heavy wooden door numbered 349, a portrait in a gilt frame, dark beams overhead.

Dinner is at Le Vivoir, from 5 to 9 p.m., by reservation only; the buffet closes at eight. There is a vegetarian dish, a fish and a meat every evening, mostly organic, from farms within 93 miles. Quiet hours start at ten. In these walls, you will not need telling.

Saturday, 7 a.m.

Breakfast without a word

Quiet hours end at seven. Go down to Le Vivoir between 7 and 9:30 a.m. Breakfast is for overnight guests only, it is included in every package, and it is taken in silence. The house calls it a morning ritual, in keeping with what the building was for.

You hear spoons and cups. The baking is done without butter or dairy. Take your time.

If one silent meal is not enough, ask reception for the name tag. It tells the staff and the other guests that you are keeping silence.

Breakfast at Le Vivoir: a bowl of yogurt with pecans, pumpkin seeds and strawberries on a white cloth. The buffet at Le Vivoir under glass: trays of salads, grains and roasted vegetables.

In Old Quebec there is a breakfast where nobody asks how you slept.

Saturday, 10 a.m.

The sisters’ museum

The museum opens at ten and closes at five. The basic package, the Monastic Stay, includes a visit, on your own or with a guide; ask at reception for the guided times. The permanent exhibition, Resonances, follows the sisters from Dieppe to the twelve monastery-hospitals they founded in Québec. Visitors who do not sleep here pay C$17.

Look for what the building kept. Its present form was begun in 1695, with the Garden Wing and the Novitiate Wing. Much of it burned in 1755 and was rebuilt by 1757; two staircases from that rebuilding are still in use. In 1759 British soldiers took the monastery and stayed for twenty-five years. Five sisters stayed too, down in the vaults, to keep watch over the house.

Lunch is at Le Vivoir from 11 a.m. Then go out.

The museum in the old wing: glass cases along a white wall, a wooden floor, a ceiling of dark beams.

Saturday, 2 p.m.

Down to the river

The house has no pool, no gym and no spa, and says so. It sends you to Strøm spa nordique, at 515 boulevard Champlain, and sells a package that pairs the two. On foot it is about 1.3 miles, half an hour; by car, eight minutes.

Strøm sits on the St. Lawrence, and its infinity pool runs along the river. Around it: outdoor whirlpools, hot and cold baths, Finnish saunas, steam baths and a flotation bath of Epsom salt. Stay until the light goes, then take a car back.

Be at Le Vivoir for dinner by eight, when the buffet closes, and book it when you book the room.

The roofs of Old Quebec from the monastery: slate and green copper, dormer windows, the city’s towers on the skyline.

Sunday, 9 a.m.

The walls, then home

Breakfast again, in silence. Then join the daily meditative walk, or the movement session, whichever the house runs that day. Your stay gives you the square courtyard, the garden and the sisters’ choir: sit in the choir for ten minutes before you pack. The monastery’s historic church houses the Centre Catherine-de-Saint-Augustin.

You are on rue des Remparts, the street of the ramparts. Old Quebec’s fortifications are a national historic site, kept by Parks Canada, and the historic district they guard is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Walk a stretch of the walls before noon, when you must leave the room, or join one of the walks Parks Canada guides along the fortifications. Leave your bag at reception if you want the afternoon.

In mid-November 2026, United’s flights back to Newark left Quebec City at 12:45 and 5:45 p.m. Take the later one.

One last practical line, for the booking: cancellation is free until 4 p.m., two days before you arrive.

A garden path under tall trees in early autumn, two people walking toward the monastery’s white wing.