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Published: April 21st 2015
It's 13.35 on the 20th April. I realise it's been nearly a week since the last blog - sorry about that. So I'll go over what we've been doing in Montreal over the last week as best I can, and upload so photos too!
So I think I left off us waking up Wednesday morning, hungover and feeling a little sorry for ourselves. We spent most of the morning lazing around and eating, then managed to get out of the house to head up to the Olympic park for a little look around. The park was about a 30 minutes walk away from the apartment, and the area had a really Southern European feel in the warm afternoon sun. It was all concrete roads, balconies and wide, tree lined avenues.
We sat in a cafe in the Olympic park still feeling a little rough, and decided that we would try and head into the city that evening to watch the Montreal Canadiens play the Ottawa Senators in the first of a best of 7 matches knockout stage for the coveted Stanley Cup. We popped home to change and powder our noses, then took the subway down to Bonaventure in downtown Montreal.
From there we walked through empty streets, through china town, and into the red light district without finding a single sports bar. Just before we have up and came home we found MVP, and sports bar and restaurant - with a lively atmosphere and more screens than wall space. We had a few drinks and watched the 3rd period of the game - and revelled in the 3-2 Canadien victory, before making our way back for an early night.
The next day, Thursday, we woke up at a reasonable time feeling very much refreshed, and readied ourselves for exploring Montreal's old town. We got off at Bonaventure and headed first to the Bell Centre (home of the Canadiens) to find the Habs (Canadiens du Montreal's nickname) gift shop to get a few things, then wandered into the old town. Again, the street around the old town have a very definite European city feel - with a sense of history and age you don't feel with many North American cities.
We explored a little more, and found a little rooftop bar overlooking the docks for drinks and a bite to eat. From there we headed back for a dinner of bison
burgers, and an evening of playing 'name the song' - which is far more fun than it sounds.
We had decided that we would like to spend our last three nights in Montreal closer to the city centre, so booked into the HI hostel for the Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights. On the morning of the Friday however we had agreed to help Louise clear out a garage since we'd stayed in her apartment for free. The contents of the garage was perhaps the biggest jumble of useful junk I had ever seen, but as we begin to sort it, Louise only instructed us to put a tiny selection of the most distorted doors and cracked window panes on the pile to be thrown out - the rest was to go towards the maintenance of the properties Louise owns, somehow. A lot of the stuff in there was burnt, and Louise told us this was because a tenant of hers was selling drugs for a group rival to the Hells Angels, who thus set fire to his garage, and the blaze quickly spread to three nearby properties. I can't say this story made us regret our decision to stay the
weekend in a hostel.
Anyway, after a couple hours of work we thanks Louise very much for a she'd done, and set about packing before catching the subway, laden with baggage, to the station nearest the hostel - I forget what it's called. We checked in, signed up for the pub crawl for that night, and were told - to our delight - that we were to be put in a 4 bed dorm instead of 10 bed for no extra cost. We relaxed, cooked and unpacked until 9pm when the group assembled in the hostel bar to head to the first of the 3 bars to visit.
It was a mixed group. We had Ben the friendly German, two cocky Australians, a couple Asian girls, a British girl who volunteered at the hostel, and a large, excitable Canadian - as well as our host, Mark.
The first stop was a cocktail type bar, with bartenders that clamped twice and pointed at you before serving. Despite this slightly alarming custom, the atmosphere was nice, and the music good. Before long we moved onto the next bar, McGibbons - an Irish pub with live music. It was even livelier in here,
and the band playing were excellent. After a few Jack and Cokes, and a few vaguely awkward conversations with stranglers, we moved at last on to the Trash bar, which was so good it warrants its own paragraph.
The entrance to the Trash Bar is a unprepossessing metal door set between open air bars, with a short queue outside. I was later told by the tattoo artist that did my wolf, James, that this was because it was a proper Montrealian hangout, and they didn't want the place filling up with tourists - Americans especially apparently. Anyway, the bars walls were all concrete and covered with graffiti, and it was filled to bursting with all sorts of people. The music was a mix of quality early 2000s grunge and anthems from all genres and years. The bartenders, two bald guys of around 30 with inexhaustible energy and a vuvuzela shared between them and blown at random intervals, lost their minds when you ordered a drink and measured the spirits by how much they liked the customers. When I went back for drink number 2 the guy told me that 'this ones going to be stronger than the last!' before pouring
the whole thing from above his head.
This isn't even the best part - there was a skate park in the club. A big skate bowl, surrounded by wire fencing was shared by young skaters, some really good, others not so, that rolled on and off throughout the night showcasing tricks. The rules seemed to be that there was only one guy to skate at a time, and when he fell his go was over and the next person was in. There was usually about 4 skaters sharing the bowl at a time, so they were all in friendly competition to to the fastest, most complicated tricks. So that's Trash Bar - I've never seen anything like it.
We made it back to the hostel - Mcdonalds in hand, about 3am, ate and chatted until 4am, then fell gradually asleep. I woke up at 10 Saturday as I had agreed to Skype Maisie and Josh, my best friends from work - which was fantastic to see them - and managed to rouse the others an hour or so later. Kate went that day to visit her cousin in a suburban area in Montreal, and we'd agreed we'd stay in the
city as 4 of us all turning up would be a touch overwhelming. The three of us spent the day on the main high street and in the underground shopping mall (with 31km of avenues and shop floor), then met Kate that evening in the hostel.
We had decided that that night we would go up the Mont Royal (which gave Montreal it's name) that sits just behind the city, or rather the city is wrapped around its base. So, the subway stop Mount Royal seemed like a logical starting place. As it turned out this was on the opposite side of the "mountain" (it's only 250m odd tall) to the lookout viewpoint, which we soon discovered as we started round a pitch black path than ringed the lower slope of the hill. We were aware, however, that we were headed in roughly the right direction, so followed it until we thankfully came across a staircase zigzagging up the hill. We puffed our way to the top, and by God it was worth it. It was, bar far the best city view I've ever seen, with a full 180• of horizon filled with countless lights of the city, the brilliantly
lit towers of Montreal set in the middle of the view. The photos I attach don't do it justice by any stretch of the imagination.
Once we'd soaked up the view as much as we could and headed bs k down Mount Royal we wandered down the brightly lit and busy Avenue du Peel, towards home - stopping off for an impromptu bite to eat at a nice restaurant bar right in the centre of the city.
We woke latish on the last day in Montreal, and headed out to the tattoo shop on the otherside of town where I'd booked my wolf heads tattoo on my bicep for 12 noon. The artist, James, was really friendly, and well as an excellent artist, and I'm really pleased with his work. It whole thing took 3 hours, and since the shading is in pointillism, it really started to get sore towards the end! But, I pulled through, and Matt, Rosie and I (Kate stayed back to shower and shop) headed to Le Main, a smoked meat cafe that James had said was a bucket list thing to do in Montreal.
He wasn't wrong - the food was delicious, the prices very
reasonable and I think by the end Matt and I, and perhaps even Rosie, had a bit of a crush on the waitress. We returned home, and set about getting ready to go back to MVP to watch the 3rd game between Habs and the Senators. (Habs were 2-0 up now).
James had said that hockey was a religion in Canada, and nowhere more so than in Montreal, something I can vouch for. Much to everyone's displeasure Ottawa scored in the first period, and it wasn't until the third period that we scored to draw level - and then went on to win in the 4th period, which is a sudden death round played if the score is tied by the end of the third 20 minute period.
Walking home, people cheered and honked their horns in cars adorned with Canadien flags, while the chant 'Go, Habs, Go!' was repeated everywhere.
So that's Montreal, arguably my favourite ever city. It is big enough to surprise you every time you go out, compact enough to make transport easy, lively and diverse - but still retains a genuine, liberal feeling that some of the more touristic cities like New York lack. Ottawa
has a lot to live up to.
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Jane
non-member comment
What a great story of your stay in Montreal! It makes me want to fly over and stay there myself. It's so good to get local recommendations of places to go. You get to see some of the real side of things. Sounds like a place you will want to go back to someday. Looking forward to hearing about Ottawa. A tough act to follow I think. Had a closer look at wolfie - he's pretty impressive especially around the eyes. Call it a day there though won't you!!, mumxxxxxx