Gaspésie - One of Quebec's Must-Visit Jewels

One of the must-visit places in Quebec is, without the shadow of a doubt, Gaspésie. I remember my in laws speaking very fondly of this region and spending a couple days there every summer. Back in 2019, my husband (who had already been to Gaspésie numerous times) and I, decided to take a quick three-day road trip to Gaspésie in June: I was working full time then and took one or two unpaid days off to recharge in what I was certain, would be a trip to remember… I was a little disappointed, mainly because I was expecting blue skies and heat but what we found were fog, clouds and cold temperatures. We had decided to stay in Gaspé which in hindsight was not the best choice. The highlight of my first evening which I spent complaining about the weather and how much I disliked our hotel turned quickly around when we arrived at Têtu, a restaurant located a short walk away from our hotel. The cocktails were to die for and the seafood pasta had us coming back every day of our stay!

On our second trip to Gaspésie in summer 2020, we were lucky to have marvelous weather for a week straight! That time around, we decided to rent a waterfront cottage for two weeks in Cap d’Espoir. We had never done that before. We are used to camping or going to hotels but renting a cottage for two weeks was a first for us and I can’t begin to tell you how excited we were about it.

When we arrived at the chalet, we were amazed by the view: we had a private beach! I could already see us having coffee and happy hour while admiring the cove and listening to the soft waves, sitting by a campfire at night while gazing at the stars, argh… we were over the moon!

As we toured the house though, we noticed a room was closed and while I didn’t pay much attention to it, my husband suspected something fishy. He called the owner and asked why the room was closed to which the crooked guy replied two people were going to arrive at the cottage while we would still be there, a week after our arrival. This meant we would have shared the cottage with complete strangers for a week. We were furious and sad: summer 2020 was a time where all cottages across the province were booked so we were worried about not being able to find an accommodation for the remaining week of our vacation. We looked for days, for a way to still spend our last week in Gaspésie but couldn’t find any vacant spot. Three days before the end of our first week, I found a beautiful cottage in Côte-Nord; and while the weather forecast wasn’t great in that region, we were happy to have found another splendid cottage by the beach, but this will be the topic of another post.

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Let’s focus on our stay in Gaspésie. I loved staying in the Cap d’Espoir and Percé area much more than Gaspé. The beaches were jaw-dropping: the water was turquoise or emerald green and people were roasting under the sun, fishing, kyte surfing or paddle boarding.

Although we were extremely mad at the cottage owner, we enjoyed every second of our stay at the house: the view from the place was out of this world, the private beach was a dream, the sunsets were incredible and if you happened to have a jet ski, a paddle board or kayak, like some of our neighbors did, you could have had a whole lot of fun there. Unfortunately, I don’t recommend this cottage owner so I won’t link the place we had rented but if you look for an ideal area to book a cottage, definitely look into Cap d’Espoir, there were plenty of beachfront cottages that were rented near ours and the location is truly unreal. And then, take a day trip to Gaspé. Every summer, the music festival Festival Musique Bout du Monde attracts crowds from the whole province to Gaspé. The festival presents incredible shows with sounds from around the world: large productions, free shows on Main Street and performances in local clubs invigorates the whole city. Unfortunately because of COVID-19 the festival was cancelled in 2020 but if you plan your visit when the pandemic is over, make sure you attend the festival!

A new restaurant we tried on our second trip to Gaspésie was La Normandie Hotel’s. The view of the Percé Rock was insane and the sunset was beautiful! I was not crazy about the menu, which was a restricted one because of COVID-19. For the price we paid, I was expecting to be blown away, but I wasn’t.

To sum up, here are things to do and places to eat:

Forillon National Park, where we hiked Les Graves et Phares de Gaspé, sat on the beach near the campground and admired the views and visited Cap-des-Rosiers village.
Cap-Bon-Ami’s cliffs were so impressive.
Admire the view from Cap Mont Joli.
The Emmerald River (La Rivière aux Emmeraudes). I could absolutely not believe the color of this river! The trail to get to the river was quite narrow and slippery and there is not much space for a lot of people to stand by the river. This is an utter gem. And the photos we took do not live up to the beauty of the place.
Haldimand Beach: it is a beautiful beach that is quite busy in the summertime so it is not my favorite kind of beach. On our first trip, the weather was not great so we were able to light a fire on the beach and finish our morning coffee.
Pit Caribou micro-brewery: one of the absolute must-try places in Percé. They have two locations, one downtown Gaspé with a nice terrace with a view on the busy street and another at the marina in L’Anse-à-Beaufils. This one is more beautiful, with a terrace with a view on the water, really ideal in the summertime, when the sun is shining.
Artisanal ice cream at Aux Glaces de L’Anse. They had different flavours almost every day.
Either book a table at Têtu restaurant or grab a lobster roll at their food truck just outside!
Another insanely popular microbrewery is Oval.

As far as our itinerary from Montreal to Percé is concerned, we took highway 20 which stops a little before Rimouski, then we took the 132 road that follows the Saint-Lawrence River and crosses beautiful coastal villages until Percé. It took 12 hours.

Take a look at the photo diary below: