Ottawa is good; but Montréal is great. There are so many things I like about Montréal that I don't even know where to start.
The first thing you'll notice when entering Montréal is that the ubiquitous bilingual public signs now begin with French, instead of English in Ottawa. The French language brings lots of good things usually associated with France, such as a great taste in art.
After settling down in Auberge de Paris, a nice and clean hostel, we walked through the Square Saint-Louis to rue Prince-Arthur, where there were lots of posh restaurants. Without a good research about Montréal restaurants, we chose ours by guts: Caprice, a nice Mediterranean cuisine restaurant.
We started our visit with Basilique Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame Basilica), the largest church in Montréal with a grandeur interior and exquisite decorations. Famous Canadians including Céline Dion held their weddings here. Behind the main hall, there was a Chapelle du Sacré-Coeur (Chapel of Sacred Heart) for smaller gatherings.
Just to the north of the Place-d'Armes metro station was the Chinatown. In case you read Chinese, you would see the word «Montréal» was transliterated as ”满地可”, which was a little bit off in pronunciation for both Mandarin and Cantonese. A little research on Wikipedia suggested that it might have been based on Taishan Dialect, the language of the first Chinese settlers here.
Keep walking north and east came the main attractions of Vieux-Montréal (Old Montréal).
The Place Jacques-Cartier was the heart of Vieux-Montréal. On weekend afternoons, it was flooded with people dining on the terraces, watching a street performance or simply taking a walk toward the Vieux-Port for some breezes.
Using the tried-and-true Rule of Restaurant-Choosing, we followed the crowd to wait in the line of the Jardin Nelson. With a garden-like open dining space and live jazz performance, it was one of the best dining experiences we had on this trip, not to mention their delicious crêpes. Better yet, the prices were very reasonable, which explained why locals also enjoyed dining here.
Speaking of jazz, Montréal is the host of the International Jazz Festival, one of the biggest jazz occasions in North American. We really wished we could stay a week longer to catch this amazing event. We did catch some free performance on the open stage, though. This duet was pretty good.
As if an international jazz festival isn't enough, Montréal also hosts Rogers Cup, an ATP Masters Series tournament, and has a (gasp!) Formula 1 circuit. Best of all, the circuit is open for cycling off season! It was almost surreal to be able to hit the same road as Michael Schumacher once did, at a slightly slower speed. Ok, *much* slower.
We rented our bikes from Caroule and took a nice trip around the Parc Jean-Drapeau, where we saw the Biosphère.
The first thing you'll notice when entering Montréal is that the ubiquitous bilingual public signs now begin with French, instead of English in Ottawa. The French language brings lots of good things usually associated with France, such as a great taste in art.
After settling down in Auberge de Paris, a nice and clean hostel, we walked through the Square Saint-Louis to rue Prince-Arthur, where there were lots of posh restaurants. Without a good research about Montréal restaurants, we chose ours by guts: Caprice, a nice Mediterranean cuisine restaurant.
We started our visit with Basilique Notre-Dame (Notre-Dame Basilica), the largest church in Montréal with a grandeur interior and exquisite decorations. Famous Canadians including Céline Dion held their weddings here. Behind the main hall, there was a Chapelle du Sacré-Coeur (Chapel of Sacred Heart) for smaller gatherings.
Just to the north of the Place-d'Armes metro station was the Chinatown. In case you read Chinese, you would see the word «Montréal» was transliterated as ”满地可”, which was a little bit off in pronunciation for both Mandarin and Cantonese. A little research on Wikipedia suggested that it might have been based on Taishan Dialect, the language of the first Chinese settlers here.
Keep walking north and east came the main attractions of Vieux-Montréal (Old Montréal).
The Place Jacques-Cartier was the heart of Vieux-Montréal. On weekend afternoons, it was flooded with people dining on the terraces, watching a street performance or simply taking a walk toward the Vieux-Port for some breezes.
Using the tried-and-true Rule of Restaurant-Choosing, we followed the crowd to wait in the line of the Jardin Nelson. With a garden-like open dining space and live jazz performance, it was one of the best dining experiences we had on this trip, not to mention their delicious crêpes. Better yet, the prices were very reasonable, which explained why locals also enjoyed dining here.
Speaking of jazz, Montréal is the host of the International Jazz Festival, one of the biggest jazz occasions in North American. We really wished we could stay a week longer to catch this amazing event. We did catch some free performance on the open stage, though. This duet was pretty good.
As if an international jazz festival isn't enough, Montréal also hosts Rogers Cup, an ATP Masters Series tournament, and has a (gasp!) Formula 1 circuit. Best of all, the circuit is open for cycling off season! It was almost surreal to be able to hit the same road as Michael Schumacher once did, at a slightly slower speed. Ok, *much* slower.
We rented our bikes from Caroule and took a nice trip around the Parc Jean-Drapeau, where we saw the Biosphère.
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