Montreal, Quebec

Another travelling day today. This time a 3 hour train ride in the afternoon to Montreal.

We have a sleep in this morning having breakfast in the hotel's restaurant about 10am.  We check out around 11am to head to the station for our 1.10pm train.

Very nice train with wide comfortable seats and plenty of leg room. Service cart comes through with food and snacks for purchase.  Before we know it we're in Montreal and in a taxi heading to our B&B.

It's a nice Victorian house, 2 storey's above ground, 1 below. We're on the top floor. Our room has it's own small sitting area, a queen bed and a roomy ensuite. Unfortunately the floor slopes very severly in the bedroom so much so we slip regularly in our socks. The bed has been propped up but we still feel a significant slope. Guess it'll be good to have our legs/feet raised. Oh, and there's no tv or internet access! What are we going to do???

Here are some of the things we did during our time in Montreal:

Day 1

• Walked to the Visitor Information Centre to get pamphlets on things to do around Montreal + tours for around the area.
• Worked out what we would do each day and booked some tours.Headed to the canal, the CBD area of Montreal is located on a canal which is the main means for transporting goods. Lovely stretches of walkways and places just to sit and watch the boats and people go by.
• Went to the Monteal Museum of Archeology & History - it's main display are the archeological digs of the old town - well part of it anyway. There's a multimedia display set up within and around it showing the changes over time. A very fascinating place!
• Eventually experienced the underground city - a series of pedestiran walkways linking shops to underground stations. Montrealers can travel to the city and not step foot outside all day. Nor would they want to when it's snowing and minus 5!!

Day 2 - Today we did a tour of the city. Some of the things we saw on the tour.

• Notre Dame Basilica - a very ornate Catholic Church where throngs of people visit every day.
• Saw Olympic Park where the 1976 summer olympics were held and some of the 2006 Would Outgames were held.  Tool a cable car ride to the top of the observation tower. There's some claim about it being the highest or steepest cable car in the world but can't remember what it was now.
• Visited the Bio Dome (the former velodrome) and now houses 4 different ecosystems - tropical rain forest, Laurentian forest, St Lawrence marine system and Polar world. It's a very well set up place with not just plants and climate of the ecosystem but animals too like a Hyacinth Macaw, a beaver, a poisonous blue frog and Emperor Penguins. Great place.
• Walked through the Chinese and Japenese Gardens in the Botanical Gardens. The Chinese Garden had been set up for a lantern festival (which we only saw by day unfortunately) and the Japenese had a bonsais display. The oldest was over 200 years old! The rest of the gardens looked superb with the trees changing colours.
• Headed to Mont Royal park and lookout for another view of Montreal.

Day 3 - tour to Laurentian Mountains (north of Montreal). We had an early morning to get on a full bus for the mountains. We want to see the trees changing colours and see some of these mountains and lakes. We have a tour on a lake and see some homes the rich and famous have made for themselves. Lots of boats moored at private landings some with jetskis and even float planes! We have 50mins to spend in St Saveur so we wondered the streets for a while. Today's tour wasn't as good as hoped. The mountains weren't as big and grand as we expected, the beautiful colours in the trees weren't there yet.

Day 4 - tour to Ottawa the capital of Canada. It's much like Canberra in that it used to be mostly a public servant town but today it's a very vibrant and lovely city. Some of the things we saw hear included Parliament Hill, Supreme Court, Governor General's Residence, Canadian Museum of Civilisation and Rideau Canal. The canal has a series of locks lower/raising the water level almost 30 metres. In winter it freezes over in winter and becomes a 7.4km highway for skaters. Many locals can skate their way to work! We head back to Montreal - it's been a long day.

Day 5 - a relaxing day with a bit of a sleep in and late-ish breakfast. We have to do laundry today too.

Day 6 - another travel day, this time to Niagara Falls on the train via Toronto. It was an uneventful but full day of travelling. Then we got to Niagara...see next day's entry.