My fiancé and I had both been to Quebec before on separate trips, but neither of us had visited anywhere within the province other than the city of Quebec or Montreal. Those two cities are likely the main places you hear about or think of when planning to visit la belle province, but there is of course a lot more to check out as well. With that in mind we spent a few days in the Montérégie and Eastern Townships regions to explore more of what the province has to offer a gay couple like us.

We found accommodations in three different towns during visit – at La cache du Lac Champlain in Venise-en-Québec, at Ferme Au Pied Levé in Magag, and at Le Pleasant Hôtel in Sutton. The first being a 56-room hotel with an impressive watergenic pool in the spa, the second being a bed and breakfast with most of the food coming from the property itself, and the third being a boutique 10 room hotel which was a 20^th

Our activities included a visit to the StromSpa in Mont St-Hilaire where we quietly moved between the hot and cold pools during their outdoor thermal experience, an extensive look into lavender and walking among it in the fields at Bleu Lavande, getting right into the local nature by kayaking down the Cherry River, and going down Canada’s most inclined zipline from up on Mount Sutton.

These areas also have many options for wineries, cideries, and distilleries. We tried apple-based ciders at Canada’s first micro-distillery Cidrerie Michel Jodoin and then a few different wines and liquors on the incredible property at Vignoble du ruisseau. We also had some local wine with our lunch at the Orpailleur winery in their Le Tire-Bouchon restaurant. Our other meals included having lunch in our robes at ^{Nord Restaurant on the StromSpa property, a nice dinner at} Le Greg Bistro & Bar on the La cache du Lac Champlain property, a farm-to-table meal prepared by the owners of Ferme Au Pied Levé, a pretty exotic lunch of Greek and Turkish inspired dishes at Bistro Koz, and some classic pub food (which of course had to include poutine) at the Sutton Brouerie.

The places we went to in Montérégie, and the Eastern Townships weren’t too far from Montreal, so we just rented a vehicle from there to make our way around to it all. There are of course direct flights from all of Canada’s major cities so getting to Montreal as your starting point is quite easy and then from there you can just hit the road and explore. We never felt uncomfortable as a gay couple in any of the places we visited and loved the feeling of being somewhere quite different without actually leaving the country. While French is the primary language spoken throughout these areas, almost everyone we interacted with spoke English as well.

We had previously stayed in Montreal for an exciting and busy Pride weekend together, but the few days we spent exploring these other parts of Quebec were a nice getaway to spend some quality time together. From relaxing at a spa to the thrill of ziplining down a mountain we had a great time experiencing more of this beautiful province.

Related Articles

Contributor Josh Rimer |

Locale Quebec |

Topic Travel |