Quebec City is celebrating the 400th anniversary of its founding and the birth of modern Canada with a new challenge for the title of 'The Greatest Show on Earth'.
Bells across Canada will ring at the same time on Thursday to mark the fourth centenary of French explorer Samuel de Champlain's arrival in 1608.
The high point of year-long celebrations is being commemorated in Quebec City with a military parade, a host of stars performing songs and poems before an audience of 15,000, the start of the Quebec City International Summer Festival and the biggest fireworks display in Canada.
Over four days, an 'urban opera', using the entire historic walled city as its stage, will feature 150 professional acrobats, jugglers, musicians, mime artists and stilt-walkers, along with 1,500 extras.
Residents and visitors are invited to what may become the world's biggest mass group photo on July6 on the Plains of Abraham, a former battlefield that is now a park.
At sundown every evening until July29, 'the biggest outdoor architectural projection in the world' is being screened on a row of 81 grain silos 600 metres long and 40 metres high in Quebec's Old Port. The 40-minute sound and light show - The Image Mill - is a revolutionary installation by artist Robert Lepage, one of the city's most famous creative sons.
