Five Townships Towns, One Must-Do Each
The Eastern Townships isn't only farms and lakes. Here are five towns worth a night, and the one thing to do in each.
Most visitors treat the Eastern Townships as countryside with a few villages attached. The towns deserve more credit than that, and each one does something the others don’t. Here are five, with the one thing to do in each.
1. Sherbrooke: a picnic on the mountain
The region’s largest city has the museums, theatres and restaurants. The best afternoon is simpler. Stock a picnic at the Marché de la Gare, the city’s year-round food market, and take it to Mont Bellevue, a city park with more than 30 km of hiking trails, including one to the summit.
2. Magog: the lakeshore loop
Magog sits at the north end of Lac Memphrémagog, a 50 km lake that crosses the border into Vermont. Walk the 5.5 km loop through the Baie-de-Magog and Pointe Merry parks, then finish at one of the town’s two microbreweries on rue Merry Sud, La Memphré or Des Cantons.
3. Granby: more than the zoo
Granby is best known for its zoo, which says it houses nearly 1,300 animals. The town also has a Saturday farmers’ market from May to November and the Festival international de la chanson de Granby in August. Have breakfast or lunch at Bistro Kapzak, which mixes Polish and Québécois cooking; it closes early most days.
4. Bromont: mountain, then spa
Bromont is the active one. Old Bromont has boutiques, antique shops and galleries, and Parc des Sommets has 150 km of trails for hiking and mountain biking. End the day in the thermal pools at Balnea, a Nordic spa on a private nature reserve just outside town.
5. Lac-Mégantic: the slow town
In 2018 Lac-Mégantic became Quebec’s only Cittaslow town, part of an international network of towns that put quality of life and local, sustainable development first. The town calls itself the first French-speaking Cittaslow town in the Americas. Walk Le Marcheur d’étoiles, a free self-guided tour of 16 stops through downtown on the BaladoDécouverte app, then stay for the dark skies. The Mont-Mégantic observatory is close by.
Plan it
- Linking them: Granby, Bromont and Magog sit along Highway 10, within about 45 minutes of each other. Sherbrooke is 25 minutes past Magog. Lac-Mégantic is about an hour and a half east of Sherbrooke and works best as its own overnight.
- How long: three nights covers the first four comfortably. Add a fourth for Lac-Mégantic.
- Getting there: Granby is about an hour from Montreal by car. Limocar‘s express buses link Montreal with Granby, Bromont, Magog and Sherbrooke, but a car makes the rest practical.
- When: year-round. Summer is for patios and lakes; in winter, pair Bromont and Magog with skiing at Bromont and Mont Orford.
Sources
- Marché de la Gare
- Parc du Mont-Bellevue
- Pointe Merry loop
- Memphrémagog microbreweries
- Zoo de Granby
- Bistro Kapzak
- Parc des Sommets
- Balnea
- Ville de Lac-Mégantic
- Le Marcheur d’étoiles
- Limocar
- Tourism Eastern Townships, Official Tourist Guide 2025–2026
Where to stay near Magog
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