Yesterday we took the subway into Old Montreal. Their subway system is pretty easy to use and very fast. Once we figured out where we were, we wandered toward the heart of Old Montreal where we found shopping and museums. We came across the cathedral of Notre Dame – it was beautiful. We decided to skip the guided tour and just admire the building from the outside.
Much of Montreal was either under construction or undertaking major restoration projects. Many of the streets were ripped up and a number of the historical buildings were covered in scaffolding. I suppose that buildings dating back to the 17- and 1800′s require a fair amount of maintenance and upkeep.
We took some cobblestone side streets and came across a cute Mexican restaurant – Casa de Mateo. Given our bad Mexican food experience the other day (see post re: stale chips), we had high hopes that Mateo could redeem the cuisine. He did. Both our meals were excellent.
After lunch, we walked towards the water. Montreal is apparently built on an island of intersecting rivers. We read in one of our tourist books (thanks Jackie and Tayce) that the geographic layout of the city and the direction the rivers flow mean that streets labeled east/west actually go north/south and vice versa. We’re still not sure why this is and reading the explanation just caused more confusion. Coupled with the fact that nearly every street is one-way, we were glad we were on foot.
Down by the water, it was creepily quiet and empty. It looks as though the city has invested a lot of money to fix up the old port of Montreal, but no one was there. There were a few restaurants and a huge pier, but only seagulls and some random tourists to enjoy it.
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We walked inland hoping to find an entrance to the famed underground city of Montreal we’d heard so much about. We stopped at the tourism office to ask about it and learned it’s as simple as finding a subway station and, “that’s it – you’re there.” We were recommended to head towards Rue St. Catherine as that was the shopping district of the city and from there we would find underground shopping malls, etc. Seems simple enough, right? Wrong. We did find Rue St. Catherine and did see that it, in fact, does have stores along it (many of which were of the… ummm… ‘adult’ variety….apparently zoning laws aren’t much of an issue in Montreal), but we could not for the life of us find a subway entrance. Eventually we found ourselves on the campus of the University of Montreal and were able to get underground from there. Maybe our expectations were too high, but once below ground, we found only a few stores that resembled those you’d find in an airport terminal.
Perhaps we missed out on something big and someone will respond to this post saying “ooohhh, the malls were just one subway entrance over! You were SO close!” Since we were so close to the subway, we figured we’d just head back to the Plateau and take a rest at the condo. Once we returned to our neighborhood, we both remarked how it felt like we were ‘home’ – an interesting comment given that we’ve only been here a few days. Still, I think we both felt more comfortable in the neighborhood we were staying in and were glad we didn’t end up in a hotel downtown.
After a brief nap and a few episodes of Iron Chef, we were hungry for dinner. Just around the corner from the condo is a Frite Alors restaurant. It’s a burger bar and the closest American equivalent is AJ Bombers or Cafe Hollander in Milwaukee, if you’re familiar. French fries are their specialty and there were close to a dozen different sauces you could try. The food was delicious…far from healthy, but oh-so good.
Today is our last full day in Montreal :( I think the plan is to do some laundry here at the condo and then pack. We also have some food we need to grill before we leave, so I think lunch and dinner are covered. We leave bright and early tomorrow morning for Niagara – about 8 hours away.
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