around Montreal...

Today was a discover Montreal day. We started with a drive to an outdoor market called Marche Jean Tallon. It was cool just to see all the produce and how people sell them. We also bought more bread, grapes and cheese for our drive to Vermont tomorrow. Take a look at the large avocados that we saw. I took the picture with the normal size avocado for context. I also found Mangosteen there. It's a tropical fruit that is not available in the US so I was very happy to get some. See picture.

After the market, we went to a park called Mont Royal. It was high up, overlooking the city so we were able to take some nice pictures. The weather was a bit rainy today so visibility was not great but it was still a really great view. There was also one area where the homes were really cool. They were more like mansions, built with rocks, and they looked really expensive. I guess that's where the Montreal elite live.

After Mont Royal, we went to have lunch in Old Montreal. We passed by Notre Dame but it was so crowded that we decided to skip it and head for lunch at a place called Le Bourlingueur. Rosie had roasted pork and Rick ordered liver and onions. The food was very good.


After lunch we headed to the bontanical garden. It was really nice. The fall colors really stand out. We walked through a Japanese garden and there were a lot of Bonsai trees that my father would really appreciate. There was also a pumpkin display that was very cool... They had kids dress up pumpkins and then displayed them. See pictures. All in all, a really cool place to visit. We were there for a couple of hours and then left to do a little shopping. I bought 2 Portmeirion platters. Yeah, more dishes! To defend the purchase, they were cheaper than anything I could get in the states or on line so I HAD to buy them!

We chose to have an early dinner to skip the crowd. We went to a place called L'Express. It's a Bistro that Susan recommended and it was very good. Rick ordered country vegetable soup, steak and fries, and Rosie had fish soup and Beef and Chicken stew. All well done and very good. Thanks for the recommendation Susan!

After dinner, we walked around the area near our hotel. There are a lot of shops around there so we did more shopping. Most of the shops were low end shops like Aldo, Urban Outfitters, Levis... but it was nice to walk after dinner. Afterward, we went back to the hotel and checked up on our emails.

So, our assessment of Montreal is that it is a good place to visit with a lot of things that you can do. It is easy to get around via car or metro. Montreal is a larger city than Quebec City so you do need to to have some sort of transportation as the points of interest are rather spread out. All in all, we like Quebec City better as we found it more quaint but there are a lot of things to see and do in Montreal.

This trip so far has been a really good trip. We would highly recommend it to anyone. We also think that fall is a really good time as it is just beautiful. I still have not ceased to be amazed by all the colors. Our luck with the weather has certainly helped.