Montreal, Canada

Montreal, Quebec, Canada

June 22^nd – June 26^th 2013

We were able to leave the house at 12.27 pm (J. slept few hours after the night shift). Saturday, June 22^nd. She was some what cranky, but we made it out ok. Heading north on I-81, nothing special as we drove on this road few times before. We made a small detour and saw a road side waterfall, actually pretty nice one. And more freeway, we stopped by NY welcome center and got some stuff about 1000 islands area. Cross the toll bridge and river and seeing many islands and forest. Cross the border to Canada, easy and quick. Freeway 401, I believe, boring, nothing … just road. Rain and clouds, great start of the trip. Less than an hour before Montreal we stopped for a gas, had some issues with the pump and credit card, no English option. Welcome to Quebec. The city and not much to see from freeway, relatively easy to find the hotel in Latin Quarter. Check in, about 5.14 pm, park the car in the parking structure (still hoping it will be just those 12 dollars per day). A bit rainy, but we left for the walk to Old Montreal. Some boring streets, some homeless people, traffic … normal city. We found a visitor's center and got some more stuff from there. Old port, some big ass yachts and still drizzling. It looked like Europe, old cities. Many and many restaurants and tourist shops. Even with the weather it was really nice. So far, Montreal is nice, short of language (so far everybody spoke English as well).

Decent night in Montreal. We walked to the downtown (about 2.5 kilometers), it was Sunday morning, June 23^rd. There was some festival on the street, so we were watching people cleaning up. The city waking up. The information center, we wanted to buy “Museum Pass” (80 dollars per person), unfortunately they did not sell it. Some more information. We walked around for a bit and by ten o'clock we were walking into the Art Museum. http://www.mbam.qc.ca/en/ We got our passes and went through the museum. It was pretty extensive and quite interesting. There were some less interesting parts, but overall it was good. Three buildings, some art outside and special exhibition of glass art. http://www.stm.info/english/metro/a-index.htm After that, we took Metro for two station to Museum of Contemporary Art. http://www.macm.org/en/ J. wanted to see this more than the Fine Arts Museum, but we were both kind of disappointed, there were some interesting installations, but generally it was just too weird. Short film of a guy sawing off the street light pole. “Art.” Part of the Museum Pass was three day public transport ticket. As our hotel was close to the main transfer Metro station “Beri”, we went to the hotel for a sandwich (lunch).

It was hot and humid, we were as well kind of tired of walking, but we went to the Metro and took a short yellow line to the island in the river. Small walk to the Biosphere (round structure built in 1967 for Montreal Expo) – museum. http://www.ec.gc.ca/biosphere/ We walked through few exhibit halls, one of them was describing never ending human appetite for more and bigger things. And that have consequences – trash, destruction of environment etc. We were told as well about the nature walk, few times, so we decided to do it. Another hall was showing “futuristic” dresses made from really strange things (bullet shells, fish skin, plastic). A short movie about the stuff people use in perfumes, hair sprays and lipsticks. Strange and scary. The walk – quite a few people and a biologist (girl) on pixie sticks. It was really interesting. We saw snapping turtle and a groundhog. As well bunch of other information. We were glad we went. Back in the museum, upper levels about alternative energy and stuff like that, really nice view of Montreal. Back to Metro, a ride to Beri and change to train. We found in a guide “Little Italy”, walked around, few restaurants and stores, otherwise pretty sad. And strange. Got some food in the store and went back to the hotel. Really sticky and tired. Montreal is nice city.

Monday, June 24^th, apparently National Day of Quebec. http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/canada/st-jean-baptiste-day For this day we planned to visit many attractions in Olympic Park. http://parcolympique.qc.ca/en/ Healthy breakfast at the hotel and walk to the metro. A ride on a green line and walk to the botanical garden with Mosaiculture (statues and other art made from plants). http://espacepourlavie.ca/en/botanical-garden It opened at 9.00 am and we were there just few minutes after. It was already hot and humid. The entrance to the garden was pretty impressive. For the most part, it is impossible to describe what we seen, it was really hard to take a pictures of those plant statues as well. The garden was nice by itself, but the show of Mosaiculture made it incredible. It started with some smaller statues of lemurs, people and dog from Tokio train station. It was amazing how those structures were created, all the plants growing on them. Even it was holiday, there were not too many people yet. Blooming roses, water features and unbelievable statues made from plants. And they were getting bigger and more creative. Who knew.

Even our schedule was tight, we took a walk through the arboretum to the tree house. It was really hot, otherwise the garden was lovely and peaceful. A small pond by the tree house (actually really sizable house), some educational materials, outdoor display of bonsai (one was a willow tree on the table with the water). Exhibition of carved books from wood, it was pretty great. A walk back to the main area of the garden.

Warmer and warmer. As well more people. We continued our tour around the garden seeing the statues.
We were surprised several times by the size and complexity of them. It was incredible what those people created and how the flowers were planted on those statues. Again, it is impossible to describe and even pictures do not do good job.

The botanical garden and other attraction were within Olympic Park close to downtown Montreal. It was a place of 1976 Olympics (I think). Done with the exhibition of Mosaiculture and the gardens itself (as the statues were placed within the gardens ground), we walked into the greenhouses. It was several interconnected structures with different themes (tropical, desert etc.). Hot and humid. We met two people on the way out. Very well done and incredible. One of the best botanical gardens we have ever seen. Outside again, we walked through Alpine garden (where we saw small fox just eating grass and not afraid of people), saw Chinese garden with more bonsai (they have different name for it) and Japanese garden. There were more bonsai, nice building with some paper exhibit and tea garden (not open to walk in). We got into Insectarium http://espacepourlavie.ca/en/insectarium, it was included in our Museum Pass and it was next to (more less within) the garden. Relatively small place with some live insect and thousands and thousands different creatures on display. It was unbelievable to see what shares this planet with us. Out by about 2.02 pm.

Still within the park http://parcolympique.qc.ca/en/, there was Biodome http://espacepourlavie.ca/biodome, a structure with several displays of different biospheres. Tropical, Canadian etc, it was crowded, relatively small, still interesting, but could not rival the botanical garden. I wanted to see a beaver, but it looked like they had their babies, so they were hiding. Some monkeys and birds in tropical section, penguins (being fed), bunch of fish and birds, ducks … pretty well done. We saw a duck diving pretty deep, interesting. We wanted to go to some show in the Planetarium (next door to Biodome), but the one in English was pretty late and there was not much to see in there. It was so hot outside. Looking at other options, waiting and feeling run down from the heat and humidity.

With the Pass, we got the discount for the Tower http://parcolympique.qc.ca/en/the-park/the-montreal-tower/, it was one ticket for two people (still it was 22.50 dollars). J. was not extremely excited about it, but I wanted to go up and see it. Up in the cabin, like a train ride. Even it was kind of foggy in the distance, we still got pretty impressive views of the city. It was worth it (in my opinion). We sit down for a moment, enjoy the views and life. It was great. It was relatively early, but we were tired, so we took a Metro to our hotel to eat something and took a short break. It was nice, air conditioned and relaxing. And from middle of nowhere, there was pretty bad storm going on. We looked from the windows and could not believe what we saw, really dark and heavy rain. Good night.

Tuesday, June 25^th 2013. Time to leave the city. We were up at 8.00 am, had some breakfast and coffee (included in our hotel price) and decided to take a walk in the neighborhood. Already getting warm and humid. We walked through the Gay Village (the main street is pedestrian only during summer and has pink balls in the air on strings (for bunch of blocks). Really nice area, we followed a route from the guide book. We started the walk from our hotel, it was close enough. Saint Catherine (the main street with the pink balls) was normal city streets with restaurants and shops. The side streets we saw were mostly quiet and pretty nice, you would not believe that you were maybe twenty minutes from downtown Montreal (the city of 1.8 million people). We combined two walks and continued in different area, big park with two ponds, many people biking. There is as well great public transport system. We stopped by a small bakery and got a roll and two sweet treats. Much warmer. We took metro back to the hotel. I had a breakfast and we left.

We left the garage where the car was parked (it was 33 dollars for the whole time), not too bad. We took a drive through the city (hospitals, university, along the Mount Royal Park). We were heading to the mountain park – Mount Royal. A bit confusing parking and almost no coins, we walked to the vista point and got some great views of the city, still the fog in the distance. And hot. And humid. There was as well some big castle like structure. One more vista point, not much different. Montreal is really nice. After seeing the Mount Royal Park we got back on the road and head to the freeway. We made it and were leaving the city. It was pretty great trip. Very like European city. Very friendly, well established, with many nice areas, great public transit. We would come back.

Driving to Burlington, Vermont via the islands in the lake Champlain. We left freeway and were heading to Vermont on some small roads, mostly farms and few small villages. Not super exciting. Nothing special. Crossing the border. Tiny border station. Vermont welcome center, cup of coffee and few maps. The guy told us about bad weather coming in. Vermont was pretty much the same as Quebec. The drive was scenic, otherwise there was not much to do. It started to rain. Pretty heavy rain. We escaped the rain and stopped by some antique shop. While inside, it started to rain like hell, on the way to car, J. slipped on the grass and fell. For quiet a while we had to drive around 15 miles an hour, because it was raining so hard, we could not see the road. Scary. Really something to enjoy. We made it, we left the islands and were heading to Burlington, Vermont.

Driving and driving. We stopped by Costco store in Burlington and did some grocery shopping (there is no store in New York state close to us). Again raining like the hell. City of Burlington, it took us a while to get it, few flooded roads, probably two to three inches. Not much to the city, kind of boring. We parked by the lake and looked around, it started to rain again. Later we found out that the city has about 40000 inhabitants (tiny city). Because of the rain, we just drove around the downtown (not much to it) and via university parts we were leaving the city. About half an hour on the freeway towards the state's capitol Montpelier. Really hilly and green, no rain at that moment. The city of Montpelier, we kind of could not believe what we saw. It was a tiny cute town. As we learned later, it is the smallest capitol city in the US and has about 9000 inhabitants. We drove around a small downtown, saw a capitol building and a bit of town. We drove to Barre for the night, more less part of the “metropolitan” Montpelier area. Again, not much there. More rain.

We woke up by the trash pick up noise at 4.32 am, it was awful. In the morning we had some breakfast and left the place around 9.03 am. Surprisingly, it was raining. We were going to cross the mountains, I guess, and were heading to NY somewhere in the area of Lake George. Raining and really foggy, we could not see much further than maybe 40 yards from the road, nice sightseeing drive. We took a wrong turn and made 14 miles detour (had to drive back). Some skiing resorts, wild river and nice country (did not see too far due to the rain). Few stops, gas … basically just driving … and enjoying the weather. Pretty much the same in New York state. The rain stopped. At the end on I-90 Thruway. Back in Syracuse at 4.37 pm. Hot, humid, tired. Montreal was great, the rest a bit less.