(Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

[Somewhat delayed continuation of our April 30-May 2 trip to Montreal – click here for the previous post]

We weren’t looking for a vegan restaurant, but that just happened to be the most interesting option in Hochelaga as Saturday morning gave way to afternoon. Not just vegan burgers, but also vegan bacon!

Of course, what trip to Montreal would be complete without a visit to the record shops in the Plateau neighbourhood? I do most of my record shopping locally in Kingston, but it’s always interesting to pop into a Montreal shop and see what’s available. And it seemed like the right thing to do, because we were going to a concert that night!

For our first concert since the pandemic, we attended a “Soul/Motown/Disco” event at Le Balcon. This is a unique concert venue in downtown Montreal…in a church! The female vocalist, Kim Richardson, was outstanding. I must admit that it felt a little strange being in an enclosed space for a concert again, but the Province of Quebec has been quite cautious about re-opening and most people seemed to be on their best behaviour. And the show must have been pretty good – I’ve been listening to a lot of Earth, Wind & Fire since then! The photo at the top of this blog post was taken outside the venue on rue Ste-Catherine, right after the concert ended.

On Sunday morning, we continued one of our favourite Montreal pastimes: hopping on the bus or subway and exploring a more-or-less random neighbourhood. Unlike Toronto, Montreal still has a special transit pass that is valid from Friday evening (when we arrived) until early Monday morning. Because every trip after about the 4th is free, you don’t need to worry about making mistakes. Another train or bus will come along in a few minutes!

We eventually found ourselves in the “transitioning” neighbourhood of Saint-Henri. We had a peaceful al fresco lunch at the appropriately-named La Luncheonette. I wasn’t necessarily trying to go meat-free this weekend, but the vegetarian chili with corn muffins looked delicious (and indeed it was). I don’t remember what exactly was in my smoothie, but it hit the spot too.

We had “timed-entry” tickets to a special museum later that afternoon, so we had a little bit of free time available. We decided to visit the Marché Atwater, which had a ton of fresh produce (see photo below) but also had a lot of highly specialized shops for cheese, vinegars, olives, etc. We couldn’t really take much with us, but once again it was nice to be in a “bustling” environment after a couple of largely bustle-free years.

Our last stop of the day was at the Musée des Ondes Emile Berliner in Saint-Henri. OK, the name may not mean much to you. But Emile Berliner built a massive gramophone factory here that was later absorbed into the RCA Victor organization. And on this very site, there is now a specialized museum dedicated to gramophones, phonographs, and other entertainment and communication technologies of the 20th century.

Of course, for a vinyl geek like me, this is really fascinating stuff. If you think vinyl turntables are bulky and fussy, look at these beasts! I enjoyed listening to some original shellac records – you really feel like you are listening to ghosts of the past.

But some of the technology goes further back than those brittle shellac discs. How about cylinders? Check out the Edison cylinder player below. A music cylinder is kind of like a flat vinyl record wrapped around a tube, and the stylus (needle) slowly makes its way around and across the cylinder. This technology goes back to 1896!

There were also some displays about radio and television, so I can recommend this to my former colleagues at CFRC-FM. It’s a very small, out-of-the-way place (there were only two other visitors while we were there), but it’s really cool if you have interests in both history and recorded music.

You may be wondering why it took more than 4 months to post this blog entry. Well, there have been some distractions this summer. And my next blog post will explain (almost) everything!

(Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

On April 30, we took our first real “vacation” together in more than 2 years. Yes, we had taken longer trips in 2021 for sports competitions, but this was travel purely for the sake of travel. And we even left the province of Ontario!

Masks were still required on the train, as they were in most indoor settings. We also had to provide proof of vaccination before boarding. But, even with our masks on, we found ourselves appreciating the change of scenery more than we expected. After so long in isolation, everything different seemed to have an additional “wow” factor. I don’t think I’ve ever been so excited to take the Metro in Montreal!

I found a nifty little Mexican restaurant near our hostelry, and we were blown away by the colours even before we sat down. And the service at Restaurant Manana was just as vibrant as the surroundings. I also really appreciated the range of unusual hot sauces I could try with my meal.

Once again, we bought a weekend transit pass so that we could zoom around the city without any worries. The next morning, our first stop was the Botanical Gardens in the east end of Montreal. We haven’t spent any significant time in the east end before, but looked forward to some urban green space and what we presumed would be interesting non-touristic neighbourhoods.

The Botanical Gardens were huge. Maybe it wasn’t quite the same as New York City’s Central Park, but it was really interesting to see all of the different botanical regions in one very walkable place. Our favourite was probably the Alpine zone. At the edge was a very impressive (and very chilled-out) owl, who kindly let me and many other amateur photographers snap his picture.

My wife has pledged to return to the gardens at different times of the year, in order to fully appreciate all it has to offer. It is conveniently located right beside Montreal’s infamous Olympic Stadium (see photo at the very top of this post), which is legendary in Canada for its phenomenal cost overruns. It wasn’t paid off until 30 years after the Olympics ended, as it was over budget by nearly 2000%! Yes, 2000%!

I attended my first ever professional baseball game here about 40 years ago, when Montreal still had a major league team (the Expos). I will never forget watching the game in that cavernous concrete beast of a building! Stories about pieces of the concrete roof falling onto the field were not completely fictitious. While the stadium is finally paid off now, most of the action these days is in the skateboard park beside the stadium.

From the Olympic Stadium, it was only a short walk to the Marché Maisonneuve and then the Hochelaga neighbourhood. Hochelaga definitely wasn’t touristy, and it was a little scruffy in places, but it had a lot of unique attractions for its residents. “Boutique Hellvis” certainly wasn’t the only one. Somehow, Montreal seems to have avoided the corporate creep that has anonymized so many North American cities. So many businesses were independently owned, and they really emphasized their local products. We ended up having lunch in a Hochelaga vegan restaurant…stay tuned for the details on that and our interesting evening out!

(Montreal, Quebec, Canada)

Everything was in place for our trip to Montreal. The only thing we couldn’t control was the weather…and, in this case, it definitely did not want to be controlled.

I travel to Montreal from time to time, but I have done only one previous blog entry on the largest city in the province of Quebec. That trip didn’t go completely according to plan either, as I forgot my camera and took only a few iffy photos using an iPod. I remembered the camera this time; fortunately, I also remembered to bring an umbrella!

However, the focus of this trip wasn’t on the usual touristic sights in Montreal.  Yes, we wandered through Old Montreal once the weather cleared a bit, but we spent most of our time in various Montreal neighbourhoods that were a little more out of the way.

Dinner on Friday was in an Afghan restaurant in the “Plateau-Mont-Royal” neighbourhood.  My favourite Montreal record store was nearby, and we found some interesting grocery stores where we could stock up for Saturday’s breakfast. This particular area has a lot of students and a huge number of dining options.

Saturday saw us visit Verdun for the very first time.  We picked it almost at random.  It’s only a few subway stops from downtown Montreal, but when we left the subway it was as if we had completely left the big city.  It was kind of fun to feel like we were the only people who didn’t live there. As a bonus, we also had success at a clothing store that catered to tall people 

We also visited the Marché Jean-Talon in Little Italy, after having lunch at the Breizh Café on boulevard Saint-Laurent. This was our first time at a crêperie since enjoying them nearly every day during last summer’s trip to Normandy and Brittany (“Breizh” is the Breton word for “Brittany”).  We were very happy with our galettes and the cider from a local cidrerie was a perfect accompaniment. We felt a little nostalgic, and vowed that we would return to northern France again someday.

The dodgy weather continued on Saturday night, so we stayed fairly close to our hotel and ate at a Tibetan restaurant near the bottom part of boulevard Saint-Laurent.  It was OK, and certainly inexpensive, but not a highlight. My Tibetan meal in Luxembourg, for example, was far superior.

On Sunday, we had lunch in the “Mile End” neighbourhood. I think we had probably eaten too much rich food on the first two days, as we both had strong cravings for salad!  As you can see from the salad photo above, they were  huge and appealing…both visually and tastewise.  “Mile End” is home to a number of important food sites (of course), such as St-Viateur Bagels and the Dieu du Ciel microbrewery.

So yes, there was a bit of a food emphasis on this trip.  Our trips to Montreal usually work out this way, and it seems like Montrealers truly appreciate food.  But we also tried something else on this trip for the first time:  buying a weekend transit pass for the Metro and buses.

That was probably the best thing we could have done.  In addition to saving a LOT of money (the cost per ride ended up being less than $1.00), we found ourselves in some truly unique neighbourhoods that we would never have walked to from our downtown hotel.  It also made the rainy weather easier to handle: we could quickly get back to the hotel and dry off, unload our purchases (mostly food, naturally), and/or get more appropriate clothes.  The pass was valid from late Friday afternoon until early Monday morning, and we will definitely consider it again for a future weekend trip.