Monteal for thanksgiving

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October 16th 2009

Published: October 16th 2009

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JamesEnglish

Harbour front

One of the most startling things moving to Canada from Europe, is the much maligned vacation allowance. In order to maximise the opportunity to see Canada, we decided to set of for a rather long road trip to Montreal for Thanksgiving. All of our Canadian colleagues have no issue driving long distances and see this as part of the norm- which is hugely different from my usual plans; as I would rather take a short plane trip easyjet style. Anyway, after work on the Friday, we filled up the Jeep, set the GPS and set of for Montreal. As we knew the traffic would be bad, we set up our transponder to hit the toll roads ( get the $ cheaper). This actually made no differnce as we got stuck with the rest of Toronto exiting the city at Peterborough for the weekend. Nonetheless we made it to our first stop over - Brockville. This stopover was the traditional motel and was actually very good and clean. We saw a raccoon run down the road, which impressed us. I guess it was like seeing a rat in England though ......
.... Anyway after a hearty breakfast we set of for the

Brunch 1

Montreal bagels and salmon

final leg of the trip to Montreal. We stayed downtown on the edge of the Old Town. We went to lots of tourist areas and ticked of a lot of the big items. Notre dam etc and had some lovely strolls around the old town. Friends from work recommended the latin quarter, st katherines and the crescent for dinner, drinks and shopping and we had some lovely evenings visiting some old time blues bars, and restaurants. The best food was for brunch. After using some iphone apps we found the best local hideouts for brunch and these were totally amazing. I know I am super geek but I had to photo my food !!!
All in all I thought Montreal was a great weekend city and enjoyed the vibe. Very European and had a feel of many large European cities, but with a distinct style of its own. M

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