Montréal🍁
My first trip to Canada and my first time leaving the country since Covid. It felt great! Entering Canada the customs agent asked me my reason for coming and this would horrify my daughter, but I did share a bit too much information. Told her this trip was supposed to happen in 2020 but due to Covid my first ever trip to Canada was postponed and I was finally getting to come now. She leafed through my passport and saw all the stamps and laughed and said well you’ve been everywhere else what took you so long to plan a trip here? So yes it’s true when they say Canadians are all nice. We found that to definitely be the case all week.
I traveled with my good friend Cheryl and once again confirmed to me that picking your travel companion is very important. Cheryl and I both love most of the same things especially when it comes to travel. We have the same energy level, like to see as much as possible, get up and out fairly early and while food is important and part of the experience certainly when visiting a country or new city - it’s not the only thing that drives our agenda. So all went smoothly and we had a fantastic time. The weather could not have been better. The days in Montreal were quite a bit warmer than expected with beautiful sunshine and lots of leaves still on the trees. We had done quite a bit of research and made a couple of dinner reservations. That was all very helpful but I’m glad we also had a lot of flexibility. Since the weather was so good we stuck to doing more outside versus inside things like museums.
What a beautiful city! There are 7 areas in the metro and we managed to cover 5 of them pretty well. The 5 we saw were Old Montreal, Downtown, Plateau Mont-Royal, Little Italy and the Lachine Canal. The 2 we didn’t see are Rue St-Denis and Parc Jean-Drapeau, which is an island across the St Lawrence River. The city has a fantastic metro system of trains and buses. It was so easy to navigate and all the trains and buses looked new. We bought a 3 day pass for what was about $15 and used it to get us everywhere. Also the US dollar is strong versus the Canadian dollar so our money went far. Our first 3 nights in Montreal before heading to Quebec City we stayed in an AirBNB in Old Montreal. It was in a great location, quiet and clean - just what we had hoped. One thing that was a bit of a surprise was how many pay phones we saw that were in excellent condition and obviously still in use. I can’t remember the last time I saw a pay phone in the US but apparently it’s still a thing in at least Montreal. Just in case you don’t remember what it looks like I took a picture!
So here goes with the highlights of what we did! The first night we arrived we walked around Old Montreal and headed down to the Old Port to see across the St Lawrence River to Parc Jean-Drapeau. There are restaurants, bars, breweries and an old Ferris wheel and I read in the warmer months lots of water activities.
The Place D’Armes is one of the main squares. The beautiful Basilique Norte-Dame is on one end of it and spectacular inside. The center of the square is Monument Maisonneuve dedicated to the city founder Paul de Chomedey. The Basilique has an entry fee to see it and also an evening show called Aura where you see the the inside during a computer generated light spectacular. We decided to spring for the visit with the light show and it was very cool. Then after you can stay and see the church in more detail.
There is a beautiful mountain (do not call it a hill we were told) called Parc du Mont-Royal. It is in the Plateau area and really wonderful for hiking and enjoying nature. Very well maintained and gorgeous views of the fall leaves and city. We spent half a day there enjoying it all.
Right in the same basic area was one of my favorite spots. The Square St Louis surrounded by these awesome colorful homes and lots of cool restaurants and shops. If I lived in Montreal that would be my spot for sure.
McGill University - the Harvard of Canada is right by the Parc du Mont-Royal. On a beautiful fall day the students were out enjoying the last bit of good weather. This picture is through the gate of the main entrance and if you look closely you will see the quad dotted with students.
The Lachine Canal area is another cool area we explored in detail because of the great cooperation of the weather. It is fed by the St Lawrence River and originally was an industrial waterway. It has undergone a major renovation and many of the warehouses have been converted into condos and apartments. It has great bike paths and running trails on both sides and people were out in mass to enjoy the sunshine.
Montreal is famous for its impressive year-round food markets, and we visited two of the biggest. The Marché Atwater is in the Lachine Canal area. The largest is Marché Jean-Talon in the Little Italy area. Both were great but unfortunately when you are just visiting you can’t do much more than look.
Last and truthfully maybe least was the Oratoire St-Joseph. Cheryl was a real trooper and I’m not sure I was deserving of her good nature that afternoon. It looked amazing in the research but number one it’s not really near anything else. Technically in the Lachine Canal area but really that’s a stretch. If my memory serves me correctly we took 2 metro trains and 3 buses to get there. And then almost a mile walk uphill to get to the church. The very impressive front entrance was totally under construction so there was no way to even attempt a picture, but at least we could go inside. It was totally my idea and Cheryl didn’t complain once. She commented on how pretty the trees were on the mile walk uphill. And it was at the end of the day so we were already tired. Clocked in at almost 12 miles of walking that day! Hopefully Brother André who build the original chapel in 1904 and is now a saint due to his healing powers will shower Cheryl with some extra blessings for her patience🙏🏻 The structure was completed in 1960 so quite modern and massive inside.
Now for food! There is a lot of great food in Montreal. Lots of French since it is French Canada, but lots of other great choices as it is quite cosmopolitan. Cheryl and I did a decent amount of research - my number one priority remains as always breakfast. And that usually means bakeries, patisseries and coffee shops. Montreal did not disappoint. One place was so excellent we went twice! There is a fun show on Netflix called “Someone Feed Phil”. Phil travels around the world eating food in cool cities. After seeing the episode in Montreal we decided Olive + Gourmando was a must - so we went twice! It did not disappoint.
Breakfast in Little Italy at La Croissanterie Figaro. Had a yummy croissant breakfast sandwich outside on an awesome patio.
Now for lunch. Have you heard of poutine? If there can be such a thing as a national dish than poutine is the dish of French Canada. It is French fries topped with cheese curds and gravy. Sounds delicious or disgusting depending on who you talk to. But you can’t knock it till you try it and Cheryl and I were game. So we went to one of the places where it is supposedly the best. And served around the clock as in 24/7. Of course now they have a menu of poutine that numbers up to at least 25. I went with the basic - or classic as it’s called. Cheryl is a little more adventurous with food so hers also had sour cream, Swiss cheese, bacon and onions. Comes in two sizes - regular and large. We both went with regular and it’s a healthy (not really at all) portion. Neither of us came close to finishing it but I will say it was better than I thought it would be. We went mid afternoon and it was packed. I give you La Banquise! No extra charge for the house cat roaming above our heads😂
Poutine on Monday - vegan on Tuesday! Lola Rosa was close to McGill University and downtown and sounded good so we gave it a try. A sweet potato burger and chick pea fries for Cheryl (I told you she was adventurous) and a salad for me. Cute and not too heavy.
Apparently Montreal is quite famous for bagels. All the way back to 1915 they have a history of great bagels. People debate the merits of the various shops like people in Chicago talk about pizza, hot dogs and Italian beef. We had heard lots about St-Viateur Bagels and seen it on the Netflix show so decided to try it for lunch. I’m not an expert on bagels but I’m no novice either and we both liked them very much. Boiled and baked in a wood-fired oven. They ship all over even to the US so if you can eat 2 dozen which is their minimum go ahead and give them a try! The manager told me the location we were at sells 7000 a day and all of their locations sell 60,000 a day!
Dinner the first night was right down the street from our AirBNB in Old Montreal. Brasserie 701 was filled with locals - always a good sign. The food was French and had a very old school classic decor. We shared an appetizer that was mushroom toast and it was fantastic. It’s mushroom season in that part of Canada so many of the places had mushroom dishes on the menu. My main dish was salmon with asparagus and cauliflower. We shared an apple tart for dessert. All delicious!
Next night we ate at Un Po’ Di Più and reservations a must. It’s a very cool Italian restaurant and the food was wonderful. A great place to get a couple of dishes and share them. We started with fresh veggies and eggplant dip. There are lots of farms right outside of Montreal so lovely fresh vegetables including a Tokyo white radish that neither Cheryl or I had ever had that we loved. Milder than a red radish but delicious. Then charred broccoli with red cabbage, a tagliatelle pasta with mushrooms (another mushroom appearance) and an olive oil chocolate cake with pears and macadamia nuts. The Italian wines were excellent too. Just a really fun night and meal.
Our last dinner in Montreal was a pleasant surprise. We were tired and leaving the next day and ran out to the Marché Jean-Talon to see it thinking maybe we would pick something up there to bring back to eat. We had eaten a late lunch at St-Viateur Bagel so weren’t very hungry. We loved the market but didn’t see anything that looked like it would work for us since we had no way to really prepare any food. Cheryl had read about a little sandwich shop called Porchetta that got great reviews but actually didn’t sound that appealing to me. It was basically pulled pork and the review said the great bread soaked up all the grease. Kind of made me gag. But I thought let’s give it a try - we’re not really very hungry anyway. Well we met one of the owners of the shop and she was so very pleasant and helpful. We decided to share the classique sandwich with fries and a salad. We took it back and let it sit for at least an hour - maybe two and I was fearful it would be a congealed disaster. Much to our surprise it was fantastic! Not greasy in the least. The meat was so lean and delicious and even after that amount of time the fries and salad were delicious. If I get back to Montreal it will be the first place I go back too! I didn’t even take a picture of it because I thought there was no way I would put it on the blog. No one more surprised than I. Just a few blocks from the Marché Jean-Talon. Run!
Just a few other pictures I really like. This one is from the top of Parc du Mont-Royal viewing the city on a beautiful fall day.
Lots of old historic buildings but great modern architecture too. This is a cool building downtown.
Not all the metro signs make you feel like you are in Paris but in Old Montreal this definitely gave me a flash back to one of my favorite all time cities.
So that was the first part of our trip. Next up with be my recap of Quebec City. Coming very soon! Thanks for coming along💕
