Blogs from Montréal, Quebec, Canada, North America

Another long day of adventures in French-speaking Montreal. We didn’t rush to awake, which made for a lovely lie-in. We walked the 3 blocks to the closest Metro station, Cadillac, and figured out how to ask for 2 day passes, and which line and platform and even negotiated the change of lines half way in. We were about 8 stops to the east of where we wanted to go in the Old Town, also called the Old Port, full of cobble-stoned streets and shops that didn’t look very busy. The Basilica was busy with morning mass until 12:30. A kindly lady saw us reading our maps, asked where we wanted to go and gave us a hint. We walked past the Basilica and just wandered a few circles in the Old Town until it was after ... read more

Montreal is another amazing city with excellent museums, parks and restaurants. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts was wonderful and the Botanical Garden and Biodome are worth a visit even through they are a bit further afield (although still just a few train stops away). Definitely take a stroll through Jean Talon Market and visit the surrounding shops for edible souvenirs. There is decent Malaysian food at Satay Brothers. Nightlife includes speakeasy locations such as Le 4ᶱ Mur and the Cloakroom Bar, and the Upstairs Jazz Bar & Grill should be on your list as well depending on the performance schedule while you're in town. I would definitely recommend staying in Vieux-Montreal, and there are some excellent (if pricey) restaurants and shops in this elegant neighborhood. Auberge Alternative de Vieux-Montreal is a decent place to stay ... read more

We awake to a flood of emails from Booking.com about our upcoming stay at a riad in Fes in Morocco. It seems there’s a problem with the credit card we’ve used to secure the booking. Hmmm. This smells a bit fishy. But no, it seems it’s all legitimate - we go into Booking.com’s own app, and all the same messages are in there too, so surely they must be legit. We follow the link within the app, and are eventually asked to pay via PayPal … to an email address. Huh? That’s a new one on us, how do we do that we ask? We’re very quickly (just a bit too quickly in hindsight) sent an explanatory YouTube video. We make the payment, and send a screenshot of the confirmation to the email address as requested. ... read more

Issy decides on a day off from touring so I head off on my own. It’s overcast, humid and stormy looking. First stop is the iconic Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. I read that this is “regarded as a masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture”, and earlier this year it was named by one notable worldwide travellers’ publication as “the sixth most beautiful building in the world” (Barcelona’s Sagrada Familia was ranked first, which is a bit hard to argue with based on the limited buildings we’ve seen in our travels). And it seems that people are noticing. Apparently somewhere around 11 million of them visit it every year, making it “one of the most visited monuments in North America”. The interior is indeed spectacular; the sombre blue tones of just about everything are particularly striking. I read ... read more

14:05 hrs: We made the drive from Ottawa to the airport here in Pointe Claire. This is where Shelley was born! We pre-paid for airport parking, so it was as easy as simply driving onto the assigned lot, park the car, grab our luggage, and step to the shuttle stop to board a large bus shuttle which brought us to the air terminal. Once we arrived, we found our check in kiosk and had to wait just a little bit until they opened. We are SUPER early but that means no stress. We’re good with that. While we were waiting for them to open up the queue, we tested out our AirTags that my sister Kristine, and my Mom bought for us for the trip. They work great! We are able to see how far away ... read more