Montreal, Quebec, Canada

When I found out that I was going to be in eastern Canada, one of the first things I thought of was traveling to Montreal. I've always considered Montreal one of my favorite cities in Canada, even though I haven't been in over 10 years. Because of this, I was actually a little unsure that I would still have the same opinion of the city. But I was pleasantly surprised to find out that all those years ago, I developed an opinion that I shared now. Montreal is still one of my favorite two cities in Canada. After traveling all over, I can now make a comparison of Montreal to other places I've been. I like to think it's a combination of an old European city, mixed with Melbourne. This entirely explains why I'm completely in love with the city.

After a long absence, I finally made it back to Montreal today (after a flight cancellation courtesy of the customer service wonder named Air Canada). My first instinct after walking a bit down Rue Rene Levesque was that I may have overvalued the city. That was until I wandered down Rue St Catherines and started to see the copious amounts of graffiti just off the street. I've always had a soft-spot for graffiti and Montreal starting winning me back over with it's acceptance of the street art. After finding an old smoked-meat restaurant for lunch I immediately went down to Old Montreal (Vieux-Ville).


This part of the city is one of the closest facsimiles of Europe that you will find in Canada (outside of Quebec City). Narrow streets, pedestrian areas, public plazas, every restaurant with a patio on the sidewalk, horse carriages, beautiful architecture, cobblestone streets. Just an amazing place to visit. I made a particular point of walking down every single street.


After seeing everything in Old Montreal, I made a stop at Bascilique Notre-Dame. I broke my normal rule of paying to enter a church, am I was happy to do it. I found myself just staring at the beauty of the church, you know, when I wasn't take a hundred photos (that's probably a literal estimate).


One stop that I felt like I should make was to Mont-Royal Parc and the Chalet seeing as I had never been. After a metro ride, a bus ride, and getting lost in the forest, I made it to the viewpoint over the city. I rested there for a bit, took some photos, watched some skateboarders before making my down the hill, via McGill University (I now REALLY want to go to McGill). I fit in a gigantic plate of poutine before heading back to Vieux-Ville for a couple of night photos and some ice cream.


With that, I had been walking around for 9+ hours and I was done for the day. And tremendously satisfied that I decided to make the journey to le belle province. Tomorrow is the big trip back to big bad Alberta.

And just for fun, here's some photos from cottage country in 'northern Ontario' (specifically, right here).