Escalier Casse-Cou

This guide to the Escalier Casse-Cou in Quebec City opens with a reckless teenager racing a homemade steam carriage through the streets, the same Charles Baillairge later trusted with the crumbling wooden stairway cut into the cliff. You'll hear how the stairs, first built in the sixteen-thirties and known as the Beggars' Stairs, rotted into an icy hazard that daredevil carters kept sledding down anyway, and how that habit gave the stairway its lasting name. Look for the old Jolliet house and its funicular near the bottom of the steps.