Montreal
Thursday May 29, 2025
We woke up early and saw that there was a bakery not to far from the hotel. It was in the RESO network known as the Underground City. We stopped by the desk to get directions, they were confusing at best, go up and down stairs, follow the hallways and eventually you will get to a train station. To be honest, I am not sure how we found it and I wondered if we were going to find our way back to the hotel. The coffee and pastries made it all worth the adventure and along the way, we found a lot of interesting restaurants.
We had scheduled an all day tour as an introduction to Montreal. Our tour guide/driver was there to pick us up at the hotel right on time. The company promised it would be a small tour and there was a total of 8 people in the group. My issue with larger groups is that you spend more time getting on and off the bus, waiting for people who didn’t get back and more bathroom breaks.
Everyone on tour was very nice but there was one woman who scheduled a 5:00 PM dinner reservation right after the tour followed by tickets to Cirque Du Soleil. I couldn’t help but think, that is one long day!
There were a total of 8 people on the tour and I was glad that it wasn’t a larger tour but I noticed that there were a few groups that looked like they were coming from cruise boat.
We started with tasting Montreal’s famous bagels St-Viateur Bagel. They were just out of the oven and still hot. We learned that they are prepared differently from Bagels in NYC, they are boiled in honey sweetened water and then baked in a wood oven. The crust is crispier.
As we continued our tour, our guide pointed out various murals and talked about how that Montreal is known as Mural City. I had read that it was it was the most “European” city in north America and you could see why.
We saw a lot that day, we tasted maple syrup at the Jean Talon Market, we learned about the local history as we drove up and down the streets of old town and stood outside Montreal Notre Dame.
We had free time at lunch and took advantage of the time to go inside the cathedral. It looks pretty bland on the outside but inside it is extremely ornate.
We then headed to see the West Mount which is the English-speaking part of the city. We saw yet another cathedral which had nice views of the city called St. Joe’s Oratory.
Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t the best but we knew that by going in Spring meant that that weather could be cool and rainy!
For dinner we went to a Vietnamese place.
Recent Comments