East Canada trip, Post 4: Montreal

On Friday morning, October 1st, we checked out of our cottage and drove from Quebec City to Montreal, about a 3 hour drive. Montreal is the second largest city in Canada (the largest is Toronto). As it is still in the province of Quebec, French is the official language, with 56.9% of the population speaking French at home (compared to 18.6% speaking English).

When we got to our B&B in the Latin Quarter area of Montreal, we couldn't check in since the owner wasn't home, so we headed to Jean-Talon Market – a big farmers' market in the Little Italy area.

Here's a truck we were following on the way...



In addition to the yummy-ness of farmers' markets, I love the photo opportunities they present. So many colours! Ben got some great shots of the produce on display...

























David and Kela were very impressed with the fruit compared to what is available in Barbados, so they bought two buckets of stone fruit. We bought a tray of two dozen figs and I ate most of them myself over the next day!

We enjoyed some delicious crepes at the market. Ben's was apple, ham and maple syrup, and mine was lemon juice and sugar...





After we left the market, we checked into our B&B - here's Ben's and my room...



After lazing around for a while, we set off on foot to the Old Port of Montreal.

The Old Port Of Montreal has been the social, economic and cultural soul of Montreal ever since early French fur traders used it as a trading post in 1611.
(From Wikipedia)

A few photos from the Old Port...















After umming and ahhing for a while over which restaurant to choose for dinner, we eventually chose one that ended up being quite amusing for how shoddy the service was (the food was okay but not worth writing home about either). To top it off, they automatically added a 15% tip to the bill (probably the only way they can get tips)!! It gave us something to laugh about anyway. That's what we get for eating in a touristy area near a cruise ship port!

The next day, Saturday, we headed back towards the waterfront and explored the streets a little further back from the river than where we'd been the night before.







One of the fun parts of the day was coming to a large building that we think was a courthouse, and seeing quite a collection of wedding parties outside – complete with fancy cars, photographers, etc! The brides were just hanging out on the street – maybe waiting their turn with the registrar? It made our sightseeing more interesting anyway!















We spent a while wandering through the streets near the river front...

















...And then spent the rest of the afternoon in the Underground City!

Montreal's Underground City is the set of interconnected complexes (both above and below ground) in and around Downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is also known as the indoor city, and is the largest underground complex in the world. With over 32 km of tunnels spread over more than 12 square km, connected areas include shopping malls, apartment buildings, hotels, condominiums, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day.
(From Wikipedia)

If you couldn't tell by the paragraph above, this is Very Awesome!!! If a person lived in one of the connected apartments and worked in one of the connected offices, they could basically go all winter without ever having to set foot outside! (Quite handy in a city where the average January low is -14.7 degrees and the record January low is -38.7!)

Once we figured out how to get into the Underground City (which did take a while!), we basically spent the rest of our time shopping in the malls. After much deliberation and consultation with our travelling companions, Ben even got a new suit, shirt and tie for the wedding we're going to in November!

We didn't take any photos inside the Underground City because the parts we saw were just like any other mall or subway station, but here's a photo of one of the tunnels...



After we got back to the B&B that evening, the other three went shopping for toasted sandwich ingredients for supper, and then we had a nice night in.

On Sunday morning we checked out of our B&B and headed to a meeting about 20 minutes away. This turned out to be a very “small world” experience as it was mostly Barbadians – David knew about 8 people there! And we were all quite excited to see Tracey, whom we'd met in Barbados in May (at Sunday lunch the day we met David and Kela), and who was in Montreal for just one week to visit her mother! There were definitely lots of great coincidences on this trip!!

After the meeting, we continued on our way to that night's destination – Toronto, Ontario, 6 hours away.

To be continued!

PS. More photos are in our East Canada road trip Picasa album.