A few days spent in Montreal!

As many of you know, Dave has the travel bug.  He can’t go a month without expressing that we need to travel somewhere.  He needs vacations written on the calendar and plans put into action just so he can sleep at night.  He continually looks at travel magazines and reads about interesting places to visit.  I can’t complain- I love to travel as well.  So when he suggested we go to Montreal over the 4th of July holiday week, of course I said “Let’s go pack”!!

Here is the skinny on what we did in Montreal.  We biked a lot!!  Since we drove to Montreal we were able to bring our hybrid bikes and use our own equipment.  What a joy it is to be able to use the equipment you train on and are comfortable with:)

I can’t tell you how many pictures I have of Dave in this position!  He is constantly checking his phone for directions to whatever destination we have planned.  I love that about him, it just means I can relax and enjoy the ride because he has all of the heavy lifting done. 🙂  Sometimes I don’t even bring my phone because he is so prepared.

This store clerk was so helpful in finding a dark beer for Dave and a fruit beer for me- I just had to take his picture.  Below is a picture of what we ate most days for lunch- yogurt and fresh organic fruit.

 
This greek yogurt was so smooth and creamy.  I wish I could find it in the States.

Dave’s lunch usually consisted of bread, cheese, maybe some meat, and usually vegetables.  Followed by a sweet- he loves cakes and cookies.

We were lucky in that the Montreal Jazz Festival was going on the same week we were in town.  All the music on the outside stages was free and you simply just walk up and listen.  There were lots of fantastic musicians and singers.  Jazz is not our favorite genre, but we were able to find some musicians that were definitely worth listening to.

Day two in Montreal was spent on bikes again.  Today we rode to the Gay Village,  Mt. Royal Park, Little Italy, China Town, and finally we ended up at the Jean Talon Market.  Another beautiful neighborhood market with fresh flowers, meat, fruit, nuts, homemade ice cream and tchotchkes.  We settled on a healthy lunch and found a spot so we could people watch.

 Street art found on the bike ride through the city.

We heading to Old Montreal after lunch to get a beer.

It’s like he is towering over the street.

Dave looking dapper.

He had me pose for this 🙁

This is in front of our hotel. More on that below.

While wandering around our hotel we came across numerous art galleries.  This one in particular had the most beautiful artwork.  The gallery is called Galleria le Royer.  It housed works from Roberta Coni- she could become my favorite artist.  Her work was stunning.  All you need is a huge wall in your house and an extra $20,000.00 dollars and you too could own a Coni.

 You can google her to find out more.

We stayed at the St. Paul Hotel in downtown Montreal within walking distance to Old Montreal.  You could not beat the location. It was near the bike trails and the Lachine Canal- we ran there everyday.

This picture is from their website but it is identical to the room we had. Sparse yet comfortable.  The hotel is new to the Marriott family and therefore we felt like we were the stepchildren.  Services were not top rate- I asked for ice to be brought up to the room and it never showed.  Also, we are used to having coffee and a hot breakfast provided to us whenever we stay at a Marriott property, this hotel did not offer anything like that.  Dave had to run down the block each morning to Starbucks so I could have my morning coffee. But the doormen were very helpful and let us store our bikes in the hotel storage and were always very kind to us when we asked to get them out or put them back in.  We asked a lot because that was really our only mode of transportation for the weekend.  The hotel  supplies hotel car parking but it was costly.  We ended up finding a parking garage a few streets away and parked the car there the entire weekend.  It was 1/3 of the cost the hotel wanted for parking.

All in all, we had so much fun in Montreal.  We love Canada and feel very at home there.  The people are friendly, the beer is good, the sites are magnificent, menus are in English, and you can’t beat the exchange rate- $.30 on every dollar:)

We did manage to run everyday (3-4 miles) and biked at least 75 miles while we were there.  All in all,  a great way to spend some time off.