Á Montréal

After a week back home, I think my legs have finally recovered from walking in Montreal. Walking 15 miles on country road in one day had nothing on walking for miles on concrete for 4 days straight! You'd get into shape pretty fast in Montreal – at least where we were.

Everything that could go well on our vacation did.

The train was fabulous. It felt like being rocked gently in giant maternal arms AND I could read on the train. I cannot, under normal circumstances, read in a moving vehicle without getting motion sick. So this was delightful. And they do, in fact, call “All Aboard” in that iconic sing-songy voice when you need to get back on the train. In the two days we were on the train, we were allowed to get off for fresh air for about 15 minutes twice (not a great ride if you were a smoker). You definitely don't take the train to get there faster, or even cheaper, but it was surely a great experience. I would promote the notion of getting a sleeping berth solely on the basis of its absence on our trip, but we all managed to get a certain amount of shut-eye. 

 

Our train was a little late getting into Toronto where we were to catch a connecting train to Montreal, which we missed. Even glitches turned into adventures. VIA gave us free meal tickets and we had a little extra time to go check out the outside of the CN Tower.

The commuter train from Toronto to Montreal was considerably faster as was the taxi ride from the train station to the apartment we rented through AirB&B. Montreal was great. I had been there in the winter about 9 years ago and I always knew I would love to come back in the summer. My high-school and rusty college level French got me considerably farther than I expected, even to the point of having a small chit-chatty conversation with the baker at the Patissérie where I bought croissants and pains au chocolat for breakfast every morning. 

We did a lot of walking. We took a taxi from the train station at the beginning and to the airport at the end, and once over Mount Royal and we took the Métro (subway) from the Biodôme to Old Montreal, but the rest of the time we walked. The kids were real troupers, with a minimum of complaining. At the end of one very long day of walking, and of verbal notification of growing discomfort, I asked my oldest, who hadn't complained at all whether his feet didn't hurt. “Well, yes,” he said, “but I choose not to acknowledge them.” He was in his glory the whole time we were there and was calculating how many years to go until he could move there (a minimum of 6 years, in case anyone was wondering). If we had been hiking on a trail in the bush somewhere he may have been more quick to acknowledge them!

My husband and my oldest were hoping for some interesting food and food experiences while we were in Montreal and in that department there was success. There were no bugs and especially no mosquitos in Montreal! so all the restaurants had garage door-style windows in the front of their shops that were open to the summer air. I loved that.  We even tried fois-gras!  My middle son got a big kick out of ordering the Vladimir poutine at the Frites Alors! restaurant.

 

We walked to Old Montreal several times, we walked to the port of Montreal and saw a cruise ship leave the docks, we walked up Mount Royal and down Mount Royal on the other side to St. Joseph's Oratory, we walked to the Biodôme at Olympic Park (which contains five various ecosystems with plants and animals), we walked to restaurants and shops, we walked to visit my sister-in-law and her partner at their home and his place of work at Place des Arts, we walked to parks while waiting for other members of the family to wake up, I walked to collect breakfast from the Fruiterie and the Patisserie, we walked to churches and up interesting streets and down wrong ones. We walked so much that our little corner of the city was becoming almost familiar.

And then we flew back. The kids loved it. They loved take off and landing, they loved looking out the window and getting snacks, they loved watching the screen that said how high and fast we were flying. My oldest managed to set off the metal detector with metal toggles on his sweater and got sent to the x-ray machine. I asked him if he had been afraid. “No,” he said. “I knew I hadn't done anything wrong.” I was not so fond of the landing myself (considering my propensity for motion sickness), but I made it to solid ground without any drama so I was thankful for that.

In fact, I was thankful for the whole experience. We made wonderful family memories, had a wide variety of new experiences, and were inspired. What more could you ask from a family holiday?