Walking into the L'Auberge Saint-Antoine is like walking into a museum, only the reception is much, much warmer. The 83-room hotel, which is located in the Old Port and blessedly just off some of the city's well-tread tourist paths, opened in 1992 in three historic buildings on an archeological site that yielded some 5,000 artifacts. Four-hundred of them are on view in the hotel's common spaces and even in the rooms themselves. Each floor represents a layer of excavation, and each room identified by its own treasure. Etched aperitif glasses used by visiting diplomats in the early 1800's may be embedded in your nightstand, or a Chinese porcelain cup used in the mid-1700's neatly displayed by your room door. Appropriately, Saint Anthony is the patron saint of travelers and lost things.

The hotel is owned, designed, and curated by the Price family, who first landed in Quebec two centuries ago to build a logging and paper business. The familial hands-on approach is part of the hotel's unique, intimate appeal. Airy public spaces reveal whimsical touches, and the newer rooms especially, are a successful marriage history and modern design, with sleek fireplaces, sumptuous fabrics, and bathtubs big enough for three. Rates at L'Auberge Saint-Antoine start at USD $142 (for a Classic room) midweek in mid-August. All prices include a homespun buffet breakfast in the hotel's tea salon-lounge.

The feedback about L'Auberge Saint-Antoine on Tripadvisor.com, a website repository for unbiased reviews of hotels, is nothing short of glowing. One guest from Boston writes, "I loved it. It was the best hotel I ever stayed in." Even a resident of France, a country that overflows with inviting hotels, reported that it was one of the most charming places they've ever stayed.

Flying into the great green north