Charlevoix: the coast road east of Quebec City, by chauffeured car

Charlevoix, past the falls

Charlevoix is the region east of Quebec City where the Laurentians meet the St. Lawrence — a meteorite crater three hundred and fifty million years old that left a bowl of farmland ringed by mountains that fall straight into the river, and the landscape that Quebec's painters have painted for a century. Baie-Saint-Paul at the crater's edge is the painters' town of galleries and the Flavour Trail's cheeses; the Massif de Charlevoix above it is the ski hill with the country's highest vertical east of the Rockies, dropping to the river's shore; the Route 362 coast road climbs and dives between the villages of Les Éboulements and Saint-Irénée to La Malbaie, where the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu and its casino stand on the cliff; and two hours further, at the region's end, the Saguenay fjord meets the river at Tadoussac and the whales feed in the mouth. For a Vaughan family that has driven eight hundred kilometres to Quebec City, Charlevoix is the reason to add three nights, and the chauffeured Sprinter that stays is the reason the coast road is watched rather than driven. The Tourisme Charlevoix site has the region's calendar.

Baie-Saint-Paul

Baie-Saint-Paul is a town of four thousand in the crater's bowl at the Gouffre River's mouth: the rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste's galleries — the town has more per head than anywhere in the country, the legacy of the painters who came in the 1920s — the Musée d'art contemporain, the Flavour Trail's producers (the Laiterie Charlevoix's cheeses, the Famille Migneron's, the microbrewery), the Cirque du Soleil's origin at the town's summer festival, and the Le Germain hotel at the old railway station. A family's first night; the chauffeur drops on the rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste and the town's lots are the vehicle's.

The Massif and the river

The Massif de Charlevoix is the ski hill between Baie-Saint-Paul and Quebec City whose runs drop 770 metres toward the river — the view down the slope is the St. Lawrence and the Île aux Coudres — with a summer gondola and a sled run in winter that is the family's hour; the Train de Charlevoix runs along the shore from Quebec City's Montmorency station to Baie-Saint-Paul and La Malbaie in summer, the alternative for a family that wants the river at its edge and the Sprinter at the other end.

Route 362 and the villages

From Baie-Saint-Paul the Route 362 leaves the 138 for the coast: Les Éboulements on its hill with the ferry to the Île aux Coudres below at Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive — the island of the old schooner builders and the cider houses, a free fifteen-minute crossing and a two-hour loop — then the descent to Saint-Irénée's beach and the Domaine Forget's summer music festival in its concert hall on the hill, the Cap-aux-Oies lookout, and La Malbaie. It is fifty kilometres of the most-photographed road in Quebec, driven at the family's pace with the chauffeur pulling off at every lookout the family points at.

La Malbaie and the Manoir Richelieu

La Malbaie is the region's resort town — Pointe-au-Pic's summer houses that American and Montreal families built from the 1880s, the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu on the cliff with its golf course, its pools and its spa, and the Casino de Charlevoix beside it — and a family's second and third nights, with the Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie national park an hour north for the river cruise between cliffs and the Acropole des Draveurs trail. The Manoir's porte-cochère is the chauffeured drop the building was built for.

Tadoussac and the whales

Two hours east on the 138 past Saint-Siméon and the Baie-Sainte-Catherine ferry — a free ten-minute crossing of the Saguenay's mouth — is Tadoussac, the oldest village in the country's north, on a bay where the belugas live year-round and the minke, fin and blue whales feed from May to October; the whale-watching boats leave from the village's wharf on Zodiacs and cruisers for three hours in the mouth of the fjord, and the Marine Mammal Interpretation Centre explains what the family saw. A Vaughan family's whale day from La Malbaie is the Sprinter at seven, the ferry, the ten o'clock boat, lunch at the Hotel Tadoussac's verandah, the dunes, and the drive back by six — or a night in Tadoussac and the return by the south shore's ferry at Rivière-du-Loup.

The extension, in shape

Three nights from a Quebec City base: day one the Massif's gondola and Baie-Saint-Paul's galleries with the night in the town; day two the Route 362 with the Île aux Coudres ferry and Saint-Irénée, the Manoir by four; day three Tadoussac's whales and the return, or the Hautes-Gorges' cruise; day four the 138 back to Quebec City in ninety minutes and the week's drive home. Three days of daily hire added to the Quebec week, one number in the booking engine; the travel desk holds the Manoir and the whale boat, which in July and August sell out.

The vehicle

The Sprinter for a family or two with a week's bags; the Luxury SUV for a couple or a family of four, and for the Massif's winter road; the ferries take both without reservation. The 362's hills are steep and the chauffeur has driven them; in winter the 138 is the coast's only road and the Massif's snow is the reason the SUV is on winter tires.

What the chauffeur replaces

A coast road that a driver cannot look at; the ferries' lanes; the Manoir's cliff drive; the four hours to Tadoussac and back on a whale day; and the return to Quebec City after a week's driving. For a family the three days of daily hire are the price of Charlevoix seen from the window rather than the mirror, and the site says so; for two families in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars on a road that is nothing but hills.

Seasons

July and August for the whales, the beaches, the Domaine Forget's concerts and the town's festival; September and October for the crater's colour from the 362's lookouts — the region's own peak — and the Flavour Trail's harvest; winter for the Massif's runs and its sled, the Manoir's spa and the coast under snow; May and June for the belugas and the empty villages.

The extension, in order, for a family of five

Day one from the Château at 8:30: the 138 east past the falls and the island's bridge, the Massif's base station at 9:30 for the gondola to the summit and the river's view, the Baie-Saint-Paul galleries' street at noon, lunch, the Laiterie Charlevoix's cheese counter at 2:30, the Musée d'art contemporain at three, the Le Germain hotel by five. Day two: the Route 362 at ten with the Les Éboulements lookout, the Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive ferry to the Île aux Coudres at 11 — the island's loop with the Cidrerie Pedneault and the old schooner at the maritime museum, the ferry back at 2 — Saint-Irénée's beach at 2:45, the Cap-aux-Oies lookout, the Manoir Richelieu's porte-cochère at four, the pool, dinner. Day three: the Sprinter at seven, Saint-Siméon at eight, the Baie-Sainte-Catherine ferry at 8:45, Tadoussac's wharf for the ten o'clock Zodiac — three hours with the minke whales and a fin whale's back — lunch at the Hotel Tadoussac at 1:30, the dunes' lookout, the ferry at 3:30, the Manoir by 5:45. Day four: the 138 west to Quebec City by eleven for the week's drive home, or a Hautes-Gorges cruise first. Three days of daily hire added to the Quebec week, one number in the booking engine.

The Île aux Coudres

The island in the river below Les Éboulements is a fifteen-minute free ferry from Saint-Joseph-de-la-Rive and a twenty-three-kilometre loop of its own: the cider houses and the Vergers Pedneault's economusée, the Moulins de l'Isle-aux-Coudres — a windmill and a watermill side by side, restored and turning — the old schooner builders' museum at the shore, and the island's bicycles; a family's two hours with the Sprinter aboard the ferry, and the reason day two of the extension is the coast road's day rather than its drive.

The Domaine Forget and the Hautes-Gorges

The Domaine Forget at Saint-Irénée is the region's music academy with a summer festival of concerts in its hall on the hill above the river — a couple's evening from the Manoir with the Luxury SUV — and the Hautes-Gorges-de-la-Rivière-Malbaie national park an hour north of La Malbaie is the Sépaq park where the Malbaie River runs between cliffs eight hundred metres high, with a river cruise on a flat boat and the Acropole des Draveurs trail's climb to the top; the Sépaq's site has the park's day-use fee and the cruise's sailings, and a family that has done Tadoussac does the gorge on day four before the drive.

Costs, plainly

Three days of daily hire added to a Quebec week is the number the booking engine shows, and for a family of five it is the price of the Route 362 watched from the tables rather than the wheel; for two families in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars on a coast road of hills and two ferry lanes. The Manoir and the whale boat are the family's own bills and the scarce items in July.

The drive from Vaughan, in one piece or two

Charlevoix is nine hundred and ten kilometres from Vaughan and a family that drives it in one day arrives tired; the chauffeured version is the Quebec City week's extension, with the coast reached rested from a city base. A family that wants Charlevoix alone splits the drive at Montreal or Quebec City for one night each way — twelve hours of driving spread over two days with the Sprinter's tables and the children asleep from Cornwall — and the travel desk holds the split's rooms. The routing estimate's eleven and a quarter hours is the no-stop, no-toll version of the whole run.

Baie-Saint-Paul's galleries, for an hour

The rue Saint-Jean-Baptiste and the rue Saint-Joseph hold the galleries — the Galerie d'art Iris, the Clarence Gagnon's house and its museum of the painter's Charlevoix canvases, the Maison de René Richard where the painter lived and worked, the artists' co-operatives with the current generation's landscapes — and a family's hour is the walk with the Sprinter waiting in the town's lot; a couple's afternoon is the same walk with a purchase in the bay. The Musée d'art contemporain at the town's centre has the region's painters from Gagnon to now.

The Train de Charlevoix, as the alternative

From June to October the light railcar runs along the river's shore from Quebec City's Montmorency station to Baie-Saint-Paul and on to La Malbaie — the tracks at the water's edge under the cliffs, a view the highway does not have — and a Vaughan family sometimes rides it one way with the Sprinter collecting at the far end and carrying the bags; the Train de Charlevoix site has the sailings and the daily hire covers the Sprinter's empty run.

Booking it

Book the extension inside a Quebec City daily hire with the nights, the Manoir, the whale boat and the ferries in the plan; tell us the seats and the loads, and the chauffeur confirms the coast road's stops the evening before with the boats' sailings on it.

Book the Quebec and Charlevoix week