Day 8 - Montréal (21 October ‘23)

simonmtalbot

Oct 22, 20233 min read

Updated: Oct 23, 2023

Montréal part deux...

The weather was due to be pretty miserable all day, so we grabbed our water proof jackets and umbrellas and headed to the car. First stop was Mount Royal which is a mountain (ok maybe more a hill) that overlooks the city. We pulled in to a viewpoint bay and had a little wander to look over the city. The clouds were very dark and very low so you couldn't see much, but it was good to see the city from some kind of distance to get a sense of the scale.

After Mount Royal, we thought we would pop to the Jean Talon market. It is a part covered and part outdoor market selling all sorts of food and drink. There were lots of little cafes, shops and stalls around the outside so it was a good little area to explore - a bit like Queen Vic market in Melbourne. My personal highlight was a fresh apple juice slushy. The man I bought it from gave me the background to his family run orchard and how they have grown, handpicked and pressed the apples and sold them in Jean Talon market for generations... actually he spoke to me in French (he didn't speak English) and I don't have a clue what he said. I thanked him (in French) and we moved on. As I mentioned yesterday, this city could have been airlifted from France and plonked into Canada. French is very much the first language and it was quite nice being immersed in a foreign language - my French is crap but there was some tucked away in my brain that I was able to bring back.

We finished up at Jean Talon and headed into the city centre. We parked up and headed for some lunch. We opted for an Italian place with a heated terrace. It was quite nice to be able to still sit outside looking over a square. After lunch we sat there for a little while waiting for the weather to pass and then popped in to the Notre Dame Basilica. I am not really one for visiting churches or cathedrals normally, but when there is something particularly unusual about it I do like to pay a visit.

The inside of the Notre Dame Basilica is decorated in blue and gold, which is quite stunning to see. We did a lap of the inside and then headed on out. It was still raining so we headed to the Bonsecours Market for a look around. This was an indoor market, but made up of fancy little shops rather than stalls - a nice place to visit if you were in the market for posh scarves and ornaments etc. We stopped in the Art Cafe for a cuppa and a people watch and decided that we should head back to the apartment, via Fairmount Bagel and have an evening in. We had thought about catching some Montreal jazz this evening but decided that we should park it for when we were passing back through in a couple of days. After a week of being on the go, a night in was definitely a welcome thought.

We grabbed a couple of Bagels from Fairmount Bagel, which was the first ever Bagel shop in Montréal and has been run by the same family since 1919. It was highly recommended to us by our guide yesterday so we thought it was worth a try. I had a Garlic Bagel (and added my own ham and tomato at the apartment). It was much softer than the New York style bagel you get in the UK (or New York). A very good shout! Now, an evening in awaits... Onto Quebec tomorrow!