The best family-friendly hikes and walks around Laval

The lake at Laval’s Nature Centre is a central feature of the park, surrounded by walking paths, open green space, and seasonal gardens, creating a peaceful setting close to the city. Calm water, small bridges, and nearby trees make it a popular place to pause, with reflections and changing seasonal colours adding to the scenery throughout the year. In warmer months, the lake becomes a busy destination for picturesque walks and lakeside picnics.

Nature Centre is a large 50-hectare urban park in Laval that combines gardens, wooded areas, ponds, and open green space with year-round recreation in a surprisingly natural setting close to the city. There are multiple walking paths that wind through themed gardens, forested sections, wetlands, and around a central lake, with plenty of picnic areas, making it a popular destination for families. Despite its urban location, the mix of mature trees, water features, and quieter corners gives the park a relaxed environment for both short walks and longer visits.

The paths at Laval’s Nature Centre wind through gardens, wooded areas, open lawns, and around the park’s ponds and lake, creating an easy network for walking, cycling, and seasonal activities. Mostly wide and gently graded, the routes pass flower displays, quiet shaded sections, and picturesque viewpoints over the water that are ideal for a relaxed stroll. With several interconnected loops, the paths make it easy to explore different parts of the park at your own pace.

The Route Verte (Green Route) is North America’s largest cycling network, stretching thousands of kilometres across Québec and linking hundreds of communities with signed, mostly low-traffic routes for biking and walking. This section is popular with recreational riders and hikers, commuters, and long-distance touring cyclists, offering an easy, traffic-free way to explore Laval’s natural surroundings and city highlights, whether you’re on foot or on a bike.

Bois de Naples is a beautiful urban woodland in the Vimont sector, part of a larger green corridor that encompasses several other woodlands and natural spaces. It's an inviting natural environment for cyclists and walkers, and, compared to other wooded areas in Laval, it lacks the development of formal trails and parks, making it an ideal spot to pause and take in the quiet scenery.

Bois d’Édimbourg is a forest oasis, with wooded trails and natural habitats nestled within the city’s landscape. The forest features paths suitable for walking and nature observation, with diverse tree cover, marshy patches, and typical southern Québec woodland ecology. As part of a network of woodlands that help buffer urban heat islands and support regional biodiversity, it creates a beautiful, peaceful backdrop for anyone riding or cycling through this area.

Good drive for part of the detour in place. At its limits of pleasure, but small pieces of quality!

A great blue heron can be seen fishing there at the end of the day.