Québec

Our journey through the province of Québec (which is the French part of Canada) begins at the international airport of Montréal. A first detour leads us to Mont-Tremblant, the most famous ski resort in eastern Canada. The Village, a colorful little settlement free of cars and looking like Disneyland, even has a small cable car to overcome the height difference in town.

We continue through the Laurentian mountains to Shawinigan, the central town in the Mauricie region. Next destination is Trois-Rivières, the oldest industrial city in Canada and hub of the Canadian paper industry. Besides the approximately 760 m² of frescoes showing the city’s history, a visit to Boréalis, a modern museum about the history of the paper industry in the city, can be recommended. The first highlight of this trip is Québec City, the capital of the province. We reserve a whole day for visiting the old town around the impressive Fairmont Le Château Frontenac.

We follow the St. Lawrence River on the northern shore, passing the Parc de la Chute-Montmorency and the huge pilgrimage church of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré. We add detours to the bird paradise of Cap Tourmente and the small artists’ village Baie-Saint-Paul, cross the Saguenay Fjord and finally reach Tadoussac, the center of whale watching. In Les Escoumins we take a car ferry to Trois-Pistoles on the other side. After a stopover in Rimouski, the only larger city on this side of the river, we arrive at Mont-Joli, gateway to the Gaspésie.

The route around the Gaspé Peninsula, in total about 900 kilometers long, follows the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River. As the distance between the opposite shores is almost 100 kilometers the locals refer to the river as “the sea”. The Centre d’Art by the artist Marcel Gagnon in Sainte-Flavie is a great sight; his wooden figures stick out of the water at low tide. What follows after Matane, a local supply center, is a series of nice lighthouses: La Martre, Cap Madeleine, Pointe à la Renommée and finally Cap-des-Rosiers in the middle of Parc National Forillon, a further highlight of this trip.