The Paris of the Americas - Montreal and the surrounding area - June 2010


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August 21st 2010
Published: March 18th 2012
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Sun setting over a lake close by Knowlton
And this is the reason why we love where we live now. We never really knew it, but MONTREAL is only about a 6 hour drive from us. Off course the moment we found that it was this close we booked a hotel and took off.

We did not really know what to expect. All I knew was that most people call Montreal the "Paris" of the Americas. It was our first trip to Canada so we did not really know what to expect. We got there and all we saw were bridges and rivers - never a bad thing. It just turned out that our first night there was our wedding anniversary so we figured we'd celebrate with some good food. Well what we got was better than good food - it was incredible food. As we have mentioned in all our previous blogs - food is our passion. We work to eat well. This was one of our first truly out of this world food experiences. Prior to this a good meal was an appetizer, main course, desert and a good bottle of wine - we've had some great food this way, but this was our introduction to
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Lampost and spider-web
the world of PRIX-FIXE. I do have to say that we are not going back. Our restaurant of choice was TOQUE. We were taken care of and the food was... it was good - it was awesome. We did the 5 course meal with the wine pairings. Inspiring food and well worth the price. Just do it. You won't regret it. I think Toque was named one of the best restaurants in Canada and it was pretty evident.

Montreal is SUMMER FESTIVAL heaven. During the summer every weekend is occupied through some kind of festival. While we were there they had the MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL going. Many, many stages set-up with all kinds of acts. Not always what I would consider jazz, but for the most part really good acts. I guess there has been some debate lately since some of the acts at the festival is not really considered jazz so the organizers has come under some fire lately. The music was good. If you look at all the legends who have performed there before you just have to take a moment of silence and think what it would have been like to see these guys in
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Cobblestone roads
action here on stage. They sell all kinds of food and beer. At the end of the day the best act might just be the lonely guy on the corner with his saxophone blasting away with his eyes closed tightly. Oh we do love jazz - we have learned to appreciate it more and more with each festival/performance.

Back to the Paris of the Americas. It really is only apparent if you go to VIEUX MONTREAL (old Montreal) down by the port. Cobbled streets, markets, the buildings, the little no-name restaurants with a couple tables on the sidewalk, the people, the language... You just feel it. Start over at the BASILICA OF NOTRE DAME, stand on the steps and look back across the PLACE D'ARMES SQUARE. Not much of a view when we were there since most of it was under construction - we were told it's a pretty square so we just did our best "visualization" of what it's supposed to look like. The basilica itself was also pretty spectacular. The detail that goes into these places always amazes me. Make your way down to RUE ST. PAUL (on your way down there stop at the little cupcake
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Old clock on the road
shop right next to the basilica and pick up a couple delicious cupcakes - you'll walk it off so don't feel guilty). Make your way along St. Paul street until you hit PLACE JACQUES-CARTIER SQUARE - the center of old Montreal. During the summer people just sit out with their beer and mussels, there are performers everywhere, and little shopping stalls all over the place selling anything from jewelry to chocolates. In the heart of the square is Le Fripon Restaurant. We had some really good mussels there. Just sit down, order some appetizers and beers and enjoy the people. That is why you are here anyway. The food and the people. After you satisfied the hunger pains grab a freshly squeezed glass of lemonade or orange juice and continue your journey to BONSECOURS MARKET - an old building that has been renovated and now has a lot of more up-scale stores selling any possible-imaginable gift.

Next on the list was LIGHTING UP THE SKY IN MONTREAL or probably better known as the MONTREAL INTERNATIONAL FIREWORKS COMPETITION. Like I said Montreal is festival heaven. This one was something new to us. It took some convincing from my part to
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Checking-up on the local gossip
get Nikkie to go. After buying the tickets the day-off I also started doubting myself - why did I just spend $45 a ticket for something that can be seen for miles and for something that most people just walk onto the big bridge and watch for free. Well let me give a little background. The festival consists of several countries competing in this festival and strutting their best stuff to make the music work with the fireworks. So this festival lasts for several months (I believe June - September) since this is only held on weekends (each country has their chance on a specific weekend). In general the shows are about 45 minutes and the paid seating is at LA RONDE AMUSEMENT PARK where the show is done. There is a specific radio station that broadcasts the music that goes along with the fireworks so it is pretty easy to walk up onto one of the bridges and just watch the show from there. Trust me it could not be as good as from where we saw it for the paid seating. Definitely one of the coolest things we have seen. And as an added bonus the tickets ($45)
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Having some fun
gives you free access to the amusement park since the seating is located inside the park. We only figured this out after the show was over so we did a couple free rides. So if you do buy tickets go early and enjoy the free rides. But the main reason for this should be the fireworks. You are probably asking how exciting can this be - I've seen millions of fireworks - this is the real deal when it comes to fireworks. I have seen a lot of fireworks and nothing compares to this.
A couple more Montreal things that we did while we were there - we did the whole city bus tour thing. Again we think this is the best way to get to know a city and identify areas where you may want to spend more time. We don't always do this, but this is just our general feeling. We passed things such as ST. JOSEPH'S ORATORY (huge, huge building that kind of blows you away at first because of the size), the MONTREAL BIOSPHERE (big round structure built after the world fair was held in Montreal) and HABITAT 67 APARTMENT COMPLEX (a very unusual structure of
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... and some more fun
block apartments - very hard to describe so you'll just have to go and check it out). All in all we loved Montreal. There were some really, really trendy neighborhoods just looked like a lot of fun to walk around in. The people were great - Montreal will claim that their bagels are better than New York's, but the jury is still out on this one since our bagel we had there was pretty average. The views were spectacular and the food was good. The visit was way too short, but we had still one place to go before heading home.

THE EASTERN TOWNSHIPS were next on our journey - also better known as the little (and unknown and newest) wine corner of Eastern Canada. It took us a while to get out of the city (it is an easy drive that should not take more than an hour), but once we crossed the bridge to get out in the country the scenery changed immediately. We quickly got the feeling of countryside, fresh food and spectacular scenery. We immediately made our way to DUNHAM for the WINERIES NEAR DUNHAM. As I've said earlier, this is still a very, very
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Basillica of Notre Dame
new wine area and thus very unknown. We drove all over the little backroads past small vineyard after small vineyard. Extremely scarcely populated and a feeling of almost complete isolation at times. It was extremely hot and we just wanted to get... Well I don't know what we wanted to do, but we knew we had to get out of the car. We stopped at a little winery outside Dunham (no idea what the name was) sampled a couple wines and just had one of those moments where whatever we had was just the best thing we have ever had (one of those moments was on our honeymoon driving through Oregon - we were cold and hungry and just stopped at this little port town where they had a small flea market going and till this day we will swear that we had the best salmon chowder that we will ever eat - the fact the we were starving and cold probably contributed a lot to the fact that we considered this the best we ever had). The winery we stopped at was very small, but it had the cutest little area to just relax in - eccentric furniture, little
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Enjoying life
pond with frogs and reads, vineyards surrounding us and a couple big trees for shade. We had our moment... We bought a bottle of white wine (cost us like $10 and probably was not the greatest since this was also a very new winery), asked them to put it on ice for us while we quickly raced around the backroads for some FRESH LOCAL PRODUCE (cheese, bread, raspberries and freshly baked pecan pie). We got back, opened our bottle of wine, sat in the shade of a big tree, spread our feast out on the table and got semi-drunk on our bottle of wine. It was a great, great time. There was not a sound except for our laughter, us chewing and the sound of the frogs. The wine tasted so-so good and the food was awesome. What a great way to spend the afternoon. Afterwards the workers came around and we started talking about the wine making process, the area and the vineyard in general. What a great time we had.

Our resting place for the night was AUBERGE WEST BROME. A spa destination in wine country with very nice rooms and an incredible breakfast. We did a
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Finishing our meal with some espresso
quick drive around the area and explored a little bit of KNOWLTON VILLAGE before it was time to head home.

We got a lot accomplished in 4 days. We crossed off 8 things including Montreal's Summer Festivals, Montreal International Jazz Festival, Lighting Up the Sky in Montreal, Vieux Montreal, Toque Restaurant and The Eastern Townships.

Well 125 done and 5,200 left.

Greetings from "Paris"


Additional photos below
Photos: 22, Displayed: 22


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Good stuff
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Very Paris feeling
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Fire-works at the festival
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The fireworks were amazing
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Jazz festival
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Nice pic baby
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St. Joseph's Oratory
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Enjoying the night
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Fresh food with good wine
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It was soooo good!
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Can't resist just one more picture
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Beautiful sunset over wine-country


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