Montreal: By Land, Sea, and Air

Montreal!

This trip was a bit of a last-minute decision, and was largely initiated by Graydyn's desire to go there and eat all of their food. He actually booked the whole thing while I was still in Iceland, which was a real treat for me since I was still on vacation while getting updates via e-mail about my next trip. I think I need to ensure that I've always got something being planned while I'm away...

We (being Graydyn, Susan, Jay, and myself) just went for the Labour Day long weekend, and in order to make the most of our time we decided to fly. Porter airlines runs short-distance flights on smaller planes from the diminutive Toronto City Centre Airport. This option is extremely convenient for us since we were able to take the subway down, catch a ferry (hence the travelling by sea portion of this post's title) and then jump on a plane. Since it's a smaller airport you don't need to leave as much time to get through security and all that. Also, you get to wait in the hippest departure lounge I've ever been in! The flight itself is a piece of cake, weighing in somewhere around the one hour mark. It goes a little something like this: take off, gain altitude, level off, get served snack and red wine, eat snack, chug red wine since you are beginning decent, descend, touchdown. Yeah, not exactly a taxing way to travel.

Upon arrival at Montreal we grabbed a cab to our hotel, which is probably a better bet than relying on public transit if you've got enough people to split the cost. We then did what anyone should do immediately upon getting settled in Montreal; this:

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my first ever genuine Quebec poutine, served at the world-famous Dunn's restaurant in downtown Montreal. Beside it you will see the edge of a smoked meat sandwich (the well deserved source of Dunn's fame) and above it a beer. There can be no better way to spend an evening with your friends than this.

We didn't get in till the evening, so by the time we'd had our food we were ready to wind down for the evening.

The next day we had breakfast at the hotel and got our tourism well and truly underway. We were going to start with the Botanical Gardens, but on our way stopped to check out this impressive structure:

No, not Graydyn. That's the Olympic Stadium in the background. It's a great landmark since the Botanical Gardens are across the street from it, and the Biodome is beside it. Both of those are things that you should check out by the way.

The Botanical Gardens feature a very nice Insectarium, with cool things like this on the wall:

There were also some live insects, but they don't let them wander about as freely as the metal ones, and they didn't photograph well through their glass homes.

The gardens themselves were very nice with great features like a Japanese garden:

A nice pond:

And a very cool heron:

After touring around there for quite awhile we jumped across the street to the Biodome. This building encloses a variety of distinct ecosystems, kept separate from each other at their ideal temperatures.

You can wander around freely through these various forests and admire their denizens, sometimes quite close up.

It was a bit crowded in there and I really wouldn't mind taking a look around again sometime when it's not the Saturday of a holiday weekend.

By the time we'd finished wandering about the Biodome it was time to head back to the hotel and get ready for dinner. Graydyn and Susan had dinner plans, so Jay and I just wandered about until we found an appealing looking restaurant. We picked a rib joint called Bofinger which I highly recommend for their pulled pork sandwich and great poutine, but ironically not for their ribs which Jay reported were a bit lackluster.

The following day started out with a breakfast of crepes at "Crepes 2Go" which I HIGHLY recommend. They've only got one guy making the crepes on a pair of griddles, so it may take awhile if there's a crowd, but it's well worth the wait.

After that we took a trip down to Montreal's historic "Old Town" to have a look around and the nice architecture:

Another great example being:

We made our way down to the shore of the river and followed it for awhile, taking in the nice views:

After spending the morning wandering about we were ready for a big lunch. We made our way to another world-famous venue for smoked meat sandwiches: Shwartz's. This place can be easily identified by the clear sign, and the 465,000 people lined up outside waiting desperately to get in and have a sandwich. If you happen to be in the area and notice that there is a full legion waiting to get in, try the door to the left, which leads to their take-out-only restaurant. You'll have to find somewhere else in the city to eat your lunch, but at least you'll get it before dinner time.

I, for one, was pretty beat by the time we were finished lunch. I should have brought my hiking boots on this trip, but I neglected to do so, and my poor choice of footwear may have lead to my lack of enthusiasm for further walking. We just chilled out in the hotel pool for the afternoon so that my various appendages could recover from their trauma.

That evening we headed to Au Pied De Cochon (I believe that's literally "The Pig's Foot" and I hope I spelled it correctly) which was really the focal point of this entire culinary adventure. This epic restaurant has an entire section dedicated to the lovely Fois Gras, and features numerous wonderful duck dishes. If you are dining with a vegetarian I strongly recommend finding another venue unless they feel like making a meal of bread and water. Actually, given the state of their menu I imagine that there's some duck somewhere in the bread as well.

Needless to say we had a wonderful meal, which capped off a great weekend. There wasn't much more to the weekend, since we just got up the next day, had breakfast, and made our way to the airport. I'm somewhat ashamed that it's taken me this long to make my way to Montreal, and I really wish that I'd had more time to enjoy it. I can say with certainty that it won't be the last time I find myself in that truly lovely city... I'm getting hungry just thinking about it.