We Went to Canada! Pt. 4: Montréal

This article is the fourth in a series about our spring trip to Canada. Check out Part 1: Travel Lessons, Part 2: Toronto, and Part 3: Niagara Falls.

Montreal was absolutely my and my husband’s favorite part of Canada. So much so, for once he agrees that he would like to go back! Next time, however, we would fly, as it’s only a two-hour flight from Chicago.

For this trip, however, we drove. Montreal wasn’t originally part of our plan. We were just going to visit Toronto and Niagara Falls, but Montreal is a place I’ve always wanted to see. When Anthony determined he could use a little more PTO, we decided to make the five-and-a-half hour drive east to Montreal.

Day One

We left Toronto on a Wednesday morning and hit the road. Apparently, there is a scenic route which takes longer, but we opted for the straight and steady highway. It was a very boring drive. It was a nice day, sunny and clear, and I thought maybe there might be some hills or even mountains at some point, being just north of Vermont, but it was as flat as our Midwest home. We stopped at a Tim Horton’s in a gas station, and we were impressed by how much better even fast food is in Canada. The food was fresh and filling, the rest stop clean and spacious.

When we entered the province of Quebec, we stopped at a post office to mail our postcards from the day before. I was delighted to chime, “Bonjour!” to the solitary postal worker and practice my extremely basic French. I had read that the Québécoise were much like their French counterparts: they know English and will speak it with you, but they will be much friendlier if you first speak to them in their native language. I never once had a rude encounter in France by operating on this principle, and I didn’t in Montreal, either.

We arrived in Montreal in the afternoon and navigated the one-way streets. Immediately I was taken by the classic architecture of the monumental buildings. I had researched rental homes but found that a hotel would be our best bet as far as price and location, and we stayed right in the downtown at Le Square Phillips Hotel, where we got a massive two-bedroom suite with full kitchen and six-person dining table, free breakfast, plus a rooftop deck and pool for less than the price of our rental condo in Toronto. We valeted the car and checked in to the establishment which is run in a renovated old warehouse. The carpets and furniture were worn but the beds had crisp white sheets and spotless marble bathrooms, and that’s what matter most to me! The kids raced through the halls and rooms of the suite, and my husband and I commented that when the hotel next undergoes a renovation, we would certainly not be able to afford a room like that!

As soon as we got settled, we set out on a beautiful warm day to explore the city. Right away, we marveled at Le Square Phillips right outside our hotel doors, a small urban one-block park with fountains and spring flowers, bordered on one side by a five-star hotel with a Rolex store, another side by a gothic cathedral, and little outdoor cafes on another. Our youngest daughter was tickled to see a giant pink bubbly statue of Monsieur Rose (Mr. Pink), part of an outdoor art series named Le Mignonisme by Phillipe Katerine, which we would go on to see variations of throughout the city.

Our first stop was the Fairmont Le Reine Elizabeth, for the 55th anniversary of John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s bed-in for peace where they wrote “Give Peace a Chance”! We happened to be there the exact week John and Yoko had stayed, fifty-five years earlier. A string quartet of all-white clad musicians played in the lobby, and signs displayed the timeline and history of the event. It was just the coolest thing to be there, not only because of my love of Fairmont Hotels, but also because of my love of the Beatles.

Afterwards we wandered the notable Place Ville Marie square, saw two more Monsieur Roses, and ogled the Ring sculpture (called L’Anneau in French), a massive metal loop wedged between two high rises. It was one of our favorite sights. We ate poutine (yay!) in the foreground of the Ring at Le 3 Brasseurs‘ sidewalk seating and gazed at the sun setting over Mont Royal in the opposite distance. We finished the evening by stopping at a grocery store down the popular Rue Ste.-Catherine (I love grocery stores in other countries!), getting some Canadian beverages and snacks, and then watching the video of John and Yoko on our laptop with the kids before putting them to bed.

Day Two

Even I will admit that we did a lot on day two, maybe too much. My kids would say yes, too much. I wish we could’ve spent more time in Montreal, but there were sights I didn’t want to miss, thanks in part to my travel icons, Anthony Bourdain, Samantha Brown, and Phil Rosenthal, all who have filmed episodes there.

We started the day with the free hotel breakfast and then got a map and directions from the concierge to hike Mont Royal, a mountain in the heart of its eponymous city. As soon as the streets began to incline, we began to huff and puff! It was an urban excursion for sure. It took over an hour to get from the base of the Rue Peel steps to the top. On the way, we located the Give Peace a Chance public art, where the phrase is etched into stones in 40 languages just off the walking path. We checked out the idyllic Parc du Mont-Royal, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, a landscape architect who designed Niagara Falls Park, Central Park in New York City, and the World’s Columbian Exposition site in 1893 Chicago. Then we headed to the Belvedere Kondiaronk, a lookout with grand views of Montreal, a Leonard Cohen mural, and the St. Lawrence River.

We hiked back down a different side of the mountain, towards the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood, where we planned to eat. By now the kids were getting hangry and tired, as the midday sun simmered. But I was mesmerized by all these iron second-story staircases descending from the row houses on Rue Saint-Urbain, some of which were painted striking colors or curled down to the ground whimsically. Only later would I come to find out these were an architectural hallmark of the area.

The place we spent all that time walking to ended up being closed (see what happens when I don’t methodically plan things out?), so we went to another nearby brewery, Siboire Microbrasserie, and had a very nice lunch on their sidewalk patio. We strolled around the charming neighborhood a bit, and then I discovered that two places on my list, Kem Coba, a Vietnamese ice cream parlour, and the viral sensation Drogheria Fine, a cash-only walk-up gnocchi storefront, were next to each other just around the corner! I found a bank with an ATM and took out colorful Canadian bills. Then even though I was still full from lunch, I waited in line for the perfect pillows of gnocchi smothered in a red sauce and dusted with parmesan cheese, all served out of a Chinese-style to-go container, while the kids and Anthony got ice cream cones with fun flavors like rose and passionfruit. I saved most of the gnocchi for lunch the next day.

That was all the walking the kids could do that day, so we called a rideshare to take us to the Jean Talon Market in the little Italy neighborhood. Oh man, nothing is better than an open-air market in springtime! We bought the kids some cherries that the farmer washed for us (after letting us taste a sample), and then we admired the row after row of brightly colored fruits, vegetables, and flowers.

Back at the hotel, we took much-needed naps, then swam in the rooftop pool, and I lounged on the deck with the book recommended to me by my friend, Louise Penny’s Still Life, which was absolutely the perfect French-Canadian mystery to read on our trip. Thanks, Colleen!

For dinner we went to the Time Out Market on the upper floor of a mall across the street, an international array of Montreal dining establishments, where the kids got Japanese ramen and Anthony and I got Vietnamese pho and Bánh mì. I normally wouldn’t go to a big tourist attraction-type place, but we had heard great things about it, it was close by, and our food was excellent. Plus, it was filled with after-work locals, drinking and chatting over loud music in the fashionable, dimly-lit venue.

Day Three

I will admit, by this point in the trip even I was worn out. But march on, we did! We started the sunny and mild morning by taking the car from the valet to drive to the original St.-Viateur’s Bagels, the home of Montreal-style bagels, boiled in honey water and baked in a woodfire oven. I got their famous sesame seed, and it was crunchy on the outside but light and airy dough inside, still warm, and we slathered our circles with the cream cheese the workers recommended.

Then we brought the car back and walked to the Musee des Beaux-Arts de Montreal, the fine arts museum. We took in a Georgia O’Keefe exhibit and rambled through as many galleries as we could of centuries of art.

I was tired of looking for lunch places, so we got the kids fast food and ate our gnocchi leftovers back at the hotel.

Later that night, we walked to the historic Old Montreal section of the city. Our eldest daughter and I went in the Notre-Dame Basilica, which was beautiful, but I couldn’t get over how you had to pay to get in. I don’t even think I paid to get into the Notre Dame in Paris! On top of that, all the prayer stations had machines to swipe your credit card to purchase a devotional candle. It’s been a while since I’ve been in a Catholic church, having been raised Catholic, but this was just too icky for me.

We walked around Old Town more, which was so romantic, but filled with tourists. We had reservations at a place the concierge of the Fairmont recommended, but when I spotted it, I knew I wanted to eat somewhere else. So we decided to eat at a seafood place called Seasalt, right off the Old Port of Montreal. Our youngest tried her first fresh oysters there! And they were soooo good, being so much closer to Prince Edward Island, where some of the best shellfish in the world is found.

We stopped at Le Petit Dep, a very picturesque, turquoise-painted drugstore café sort of place (in Montreal, convenience stores are called dépanneurs) where the kids got some ice cream. I wanted to buy a knit cap (AKA a tuque!) with the word “Poutine” on it, and I’m still kicking myself that I didn’t. It would’ve made me happy to wear it all winter. And hungry!

After some souvenir shopping, we took one last look at the old city and then took a cab back to the hotel for another sunset swim, then to pack and rest for at least a fourteen-hour drive the next morning.

Day Four

We rose so early that there was no hotel breakfast available, so we bookended our trip with a quick walk to Tim Horton’s across from the Olympic House. Then it was back on the road. We crossed back into the states easily at Alexandria Bay, and I relished the views of upstate New York and all its lakes. We stopped in a little town to use the restrooms and saw an Amish man driving a horse and buggy to the Home Depot!

It was over six hours from Montreal to Buffalo, New York, for our final official stop of the trip. We ate at Anchor Bar, the home of the original Buffalo wings, alongside international tourists. It was just as kitschy as I expected, with framed newspaper articles and signed photos of visiting celebrities, and the wings were pretty decent.

On the way home, we stopped at a rest stop in Pennsylvania with Lake Erie behind it. That was our fourth Great Lake of the trip! We crossed Ohio and Indiana and arrived that night with the sticky exhaustion of a long day of travel.

Next Time

I definitely want to return to Montreal, and much to my pleasure, so does Anthony! Next time, I’d stay in an rental apartment in the Plateau Mont-Royal neighborhood. The city centre was nice, but that neighborhood had such a cool vibe. I’d get a smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s Deli, which we didn’t do. (I’ve had a smoke meat sandwich in the Montreal airport back in 2017, but it’s not the same!)

I want to walk down the streets and enjoy at a leisurely pace, visiting more neighborhoods and markets. The food was so delicious in Montreal, I know I’d be happy going anywhere. It felt cosmopolitan and foreign, and yet cozy and quaint. I want to go in the art shops, though once we got home, I did find a native-Montreal artist on Etsy, Dee Underwood, and bought two of her paintings, one of the beautiful staircases and one on Place Ville Marie where we ate the first night.

We didn’t get to go to Cirque du Soleil in the place where it was founded or the Biosphere. We didn’t get to see Habitat 67 or the only Mies van der Rohe-designed gas station in the world. Montreal felt like a place you could go back to again and again, always discovering, always enamored.

Au revoir, Montreal. Until next time.