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The scenic Gaspe Peninsula has always been sparsely inhabited and poor, its remote communities eking out an existence from the turbulent seas and the rocky soil. Still, it functions as a major summer holiday spot, especially busy during the last two weeks of July for Quebec's construction holiday ; if you travel during this period, book your accommodation and activities well in advance. The people of the peninsula are predominantly and proudly Quebecois, though there are pockets of long-established English-speaking settlements, particularly in and around Gaspe town, while Carleton and Bonaventure are centres of Acadian culture, established in 1755 in the wake of the British deportation of some 10,000 Acadians from around the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia . Neither of these communities has created visually distinctive villages or towns, however, and the Gaspe looks as French as the heartlands of rural Quebec. Bounded by the Gulf of St Lawrence to the north and west, and by the Baie des Chaleurs to the south and east, the peninsula is roughly 550km long, with a chain of mountains and rolling highlands dominating the interior and the northern shore. These provide some wonderful scenery of forested hills cut with deep ravines and vistas of craggy mountains tumbling to the jagged coastline fronted by the St Lawrence. The landscape makes the winding coastal drive along Hwy 132 a delight, although the principal towns strung along this shore - Rimouski, Matane and Gaspe - are in themselves less appealing than smaller villages like Bic, Mont-St-Pierre and busy Perce . The Gaspe Peninsula also has two outstanding parks: the extravagantly mountainous Parc de la Gaspesie , inland from Ste-Anne-des-Monts , and the Parc National de Forillon , at the tip of the peninsula, with its mountain and coastal hikes and wonderfully rich wildlife. Just to the south of the Forillon park, the village of Perce is famous for the offshore Rocher Perce , an extraordinary limestone monolith that has been a magnet for travellers for more than a hundred years. East of here, stuck out in the middle of the Gulf of St Lawrence, the Iles-de-la-Madeleine are most easily reached by ferry from Prince Edward Island . This windswept archipelago has majestic, treeless landscapes, fringed by fine beaches and crazily eroded sandstone cliffs, and appeals particularly to cyclists, walkers and people who just want to lie on a beach in complete solitude. The south coast of the Gaspe is, for the most part, flatter and duller than the north but the resort of Carleton, where the mountains return to tower over the coast, is an agreeable place to break your journey, especially as it's near the extraordinary fish and plant fossils of the Parc de Miguasha , a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Gaspe is well served by bus , with regular services travelling both the north and south coasts of the peninsula from Rimouski, Riviere-du-Loup and Quebec City. The interior and the peninsula's parks are, however, difficult to explore without a car. VIA Rail links Montreal by train with Riviere du Loup and Rimouski, then follows the southern coast of the peninsula to Carleton and Perce, terminating in Gaspe town after 17.5 hours - there's no service between Gaspe and Rimouski on the northern coast, though. Be warned: some stations (like Perce) are miles from the towns they serve.
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