An early start to the day with a 7am train to Gatwick. Everything went well apart from almost getting on the wrong train at Victoria. We got our first ever seat upgrade on the flight! Just to seats with more legroom but still.
Gareth’s in-flight film reviews:
Avengers Endgame – 9/10 Only downside to this film was that we hadn’t seen the last one before hand. Great end to the series. Classic mix of comedy, action, tragedy and a bit of romance.
Alita: Battle Angel – 6/10 Was disappointed as Alita was a really weird mix of badass heroine and very naïve teenage girl and I found it a bit hard to root for her. Also the story line was a bit all over the place and I don’t really like films that try to set themselves up for a sequel, which this one definitely did.
And so we arrived at our first destination: Montreal. Gareth spent a couple of weekends here whilst on his university year abroad in Plattsburgh so has at bit of local knowledge, although Claire’s hopes at having a ready formed tour guide may be a bit optimistic as it’s 11 years since he was last here!
First on the to-do list = poutine. A classic dish in Montreal and across Quebec. After checking into our hostel we went out in search of food – fortunately Montreal has the largest number of restaurants/capita in Canada so this wasn’t exactly difficult! Found a place called Saint Houblon with tables outside, poutine on the menu.
We ordered a variant of poutine that came with Peking Duck and of course contained the main ingredients of cheesy chips with gravy. It was brilliant. We also had a vegetarian version (not proper poutine – according to the waiter) which came with tofu, black beans and cabbage and tasted a bit like Chinese food. It was ok, but we preferred the real deal.
The other selling point of this place was the microbrewery. Claire was brave and had an unusual (ie not Corona) lager, Gareth had an East Coast IPA, which was quite citrusy (Claire says “Tasted like beer with orange squash – not impressed”) and tried an “English Brown Ale”, which tasted more like a Mild, both went down well and were easy to drink.
After a walk round the block (amazing street art), we headed back to the room and at 9pm (2am UK time) we couldn’t hold out much longer and fell asleep.
With our body clocks still on UK time we stopped pretending to sleep at 5:30am. Claire had found an app called Runnin’ City which provides you with running routes and commentary about the different sights you are passing along with other interesting facts about the city (‘Mark Twain once commented that you couldn’t throw a ball in Montreal without breaking a church window’). So by 6:15am we were out doing a 7km sightseeing jog around the old city and taking advantage of the crowd free streets.
A quick shower, change and breakfast later and we were off, meandering through the city streets on our way to Parc Mont Royal, a beautiful forested hillscape with lakes, sculptures, monuments and fantastic views looking out over the city. What a wonderful place to spend a sunny morning.
For lunch, friends had recommended we head to a bakery to try the famous Kouing Amman ‘Butter cake’ – as unhealthy as it sounds but so popular that if you’re not in the shop when the next batch comes out the oven, you miss out. After two failed attempts (second time we were one person too late less than five minutes after the batch had been served up), we grabbed a quiche and a cheese and ham croissant and took the risk of pre-ordering half a cake (about half a pizza worth but twice a thick)! This was the minimum advance order and the only way to guarantee to try it as the shop would be shut for the Labour Day holiday on Monday.
It was definitely worth the wait. We took the cake out to the 1976 Olympic Park and Parc Maisonneuve, where we sat in the sun and read and ate cake.
After exploring the Olympic Park and the Botanical Gardens, we jumped on the Metro and headed down to the St. Lawrence River and the docks. The river looked quite special in the late afternoon light and it is a huge river, considering that Montreal is basically on a huge island in the middle of the river and we were only looking at one branch of it!
The quiet of the morning had disappeared and the docks were bustling with people enjoying the long weekend, there was a concert on and a zip wire and loads of fairground rides.
After our early start and 40,000 steps our energy was starting to flag so after a quick dinner, we headed back to the hotel.
Claire and Gareth go travelling! 