Montreal - Day Four - Amaluna

Today we started the day with some Montreal-style bagels from a local bagel shop.  They differ from the traditional NY-style bagels in that they are lighter and have a bit less flavor (due to less salt).  We had a sesame seed, which is one of the traditional flavors, and a cinnamon raisin.  Having tried both, I prefer NY-style but that might be because it's what I am used to.

We then took the Metro downtown and climbed to the top of Mont Royal.  We got off at the University of Montreal stop and walked through the Notre Dame des Nieges cemetery.  The walk was a lot longer than I expected, but it was worth it.  The cemetery is beautiful, and had flowers everywhere.  We made the choice to not take any pictures there.  

After getting through the cemetery, the climb to the top of Mont Royal was taxing.  It's a long way up, but the views once we got there were spectacular.

It reminded us of the Piazalle Michaelangelo in Florence, though the setting is obviously not quite the same.

We walked down the front of Mont Royal to McGill University to look for some swag to bring home.  The campus is set into Mont Royal and is a great setting for a university.  While in the university gift shop we learned that McGill has a quidditch team.  I asked the girl how they got past the whole "not being able to fly on brooms" thing.  She said they sort of run around on the ground.  I found this video of a match on YouTube.  I am not quite sure what to say.

For dinner, we found a place here on the Plateau that serves speciality grilled cheese sandwiches called Emporte Piece.  I had a delicious sandwich that had salami and pickles (cornichon) on it.  Shelley had a grilled cheese and applesauce sandwich.  Both came with a really fresh salad of arugula and strawberries.  While they were quite tasty, I thought the prices were a bit high for a grilled cheese sandwich.  Very unique flavors, however.

After dinner it was on to le grand chapiteau for the Cirque Du Soleil show.

Having seen Ka in Las Vegas, I knew it would be amazing.  However, I must say that seeing it at the Old Port in Montreal under the big tent gave it a special something that you don't get in Vegas.  The show was Amaluna, which is brand new.  It was simply breathtaking.  There are no words to describe it, so I won't even try here.  You are not allowed to take pictures of the show, either.

We left the show completely exhausted from a long day.  Tomorrow we are going to take it easy, take in a bit more of some of the great food here, and be on our way home Friday.

Montreal - Day Three - Out of the City

Day Three started the same as Day Two:  A trip to Le Fromentier for some delicious pastries.  

After breakfast we packed a lunch and headed north out of Montreal to St Sauveur and St Jerome.  It took about an hour to get to St Sauveur, where they have Alpine slides.  When I was young, many of the ski resorts in New York would have Alpine slides in the summer to stay busy.  They do this in St Sauveur here in Quebec.  

 

The track was very different from the ones I rode on as a kid.  Instead of it being more or less an open track that had a bobsled kind of feel (high banking turns, open on the straight-aways) this track was much more like a roller coaster.  The sleds could not just fly off the track like the good old days.  While the fear factor was significantly reduced, I will say that this new style allows you to go a LOT faster and not brake at all.  

The other nice thing about this track was that they towed you up the hill, again like a roller coaster.  The rides were quite expensive, so we only rode it three times.  It was, however, a complete blast.  Highly recommended!

After our adrenaline rush, we headed back to St Jerome and Parc Regional Riviere du Nord.  It costs $5 per adult to get in.  We had read about there being some great hiking trails and waterfalls in the park.  At first blush, we thought we had found the wrong place.  The park runs right alongside Autoroute 15, and does not seem like it would be much from the road.  However, we quickly found that once you get away from the highway it is a beautiful park.

There is a river running along the entire length of the park and we did some wading and exploration as we went along.  We got to Wilson Falls after about 15-20 minutes of hiking.  The falls themselves are not huge, but the area around them is really beautiful.  We spent probably an hour or more just walking to different parts of the rapids and sitting and enjoying the views and the nice cool water.  It was a great break from ramming around the city.

Upon returning to Montreal we got cleaned up and headed out for dinner to Chinatown.  We found a good, but not great, Szechuan restaurant called Delicieux Xiang.  I don't think we ordered the right food, and one of the items we ordered was not at all what we had expected.  Crossing three languages also had its issues (Chinese, French, English).  It was the first real miss of the trip food-wise.  By miss I mean it was not exceptional.  

We took the Metro back to the apartment and crashed, full of another days activities.  Tomorrow is a big day, as we have tickets to the Cirque De Soleil under the big tent down at Old Port, Montreal where it all started.  This was an unplanned bonus, and we can't wait to go!

Montreal - Day Two - The Olympic Stadium

We started today with some amazing baked goods from a bakery right here in the Plateau called Le Fromentier.  It is one of the top-rated bakeries in the city according to everything we read, and it did not disappoint.  We had a couple of berry pastries and croissants.  They were incredible.  I know that we will be going back there tomorrow.  And the day after that.  And the day after that.

It took a while to get going this morning, so we decided to stay around the apartment until lunch time.  We walked from the apartment to Schwartz's Deli.

The walk took about 30 minutes, during which we passed Parc La Fontaine.  Montreal is full of these really big parks that are simply beautiful.  It does not hurt that the weather here has been unbelievably nice.  It has been a welcome respite from the heat of the South.

When we got to the restaurant, we had to wait about 20-30 minutes to get a seat.  The seating is NY style, where they just put you wherever they can find you a spot.


Schwartz's has been around for over 80 years and is world-famous for their smoked meats.  The main item on the menu is a smoked beef concoction made of pastrami and corned beef.  I know, it doesn't sound great.  But it is.  They serve it on rye bread with this amazing mustard.  We ordered a side of french fries and cole slaw to go with it, both of which were really good.



After leaving Schwartz's, we walked to the Mont Royal Metro stop.  One of the fun things at this stop is that they have these HUGE Adirondack chairs.  The gang horsed around while I returned some phone calls.

We headed off to the Olympic Park area to tour the remains of the 1976 Olympics.  There is this really odd-looking observation tower that was, at one point, going to be used to raise and lower the roof on the stadium.  However, it only worked a few times and then stopped, so now you can just ride up there and see all of Montreal.  You ride this odd cable car thing up the outside of the tower, then get off in the  observation area to look around.

I am not sure what I was expecting from the Olympic Stadium area, but it was thoroughly underwhelming.  It looked a bit run down and dilapidated.  There is a new stadium right next door where the Montreal MLS team plays (I don't know their name, and let's be honest: Who really cares about the MLS?).

After the run up the observation tower, Shelley and our son went to the Biodome.   This has four climates under one roof, complete with live animals and other accouterments.  I stayed outside and enjoyed the weather / slept on a bench in the shade.

On the way back to the apartment we picked up some groceries for dinner. One of the main reasons we like to stay in an apartment when we travel is that there are times we feel like eating in.  Tonight was one of those nights.  We had some pasta and veggies, along with some fresh bread.

After dinner we went to get some ice cream.  We found this really tasty spot here in Mont Royal called Bo-Bec.  I had a single scoop combo of Pistachio and Strawberry, and our son had Blood Orange sorbet with Blackberry.  All of it was quite delicious.

After a full day, we hit the rack with full bellies and the cool night air drifting around the apartment.  Tomorrow we are heading out of the city for some hiking and (hopefully) Alpine slides.

Montreal - Day One - Bon Jour, Montreal!

Yesterday we arrived in Montreal for a few days of holiday time.  We drove in from New York after dropping one of our kids off at camp in the Adirondacks for the week.  It is the first time for all of us in Montreal.

The border crossing was really easy.  I have heard horror stories from others about getting into Canada by car, but we had no issues at all.  We were through in probably ten minutes or less.

Welcome to Quebec!

It took a little less than an hour to get from the border to downtown Montreal, where we promptly got lost (thanks to Google Maps).  We are renting an apartment this week in the Mont Royal neighborhood of the city.  We found the apartment on Airbnb.  The owners have been really helpful and the apartment is quite nice. 

Mont Royal is an older, more residential area.  The street we are staying on has a ton of really great shops and restaurants to choose from, all within a short walk.  The Metro stop is about 7-10 minutes away on foot.

After dropping our gear at the apartment, we took off to see some of the city.  Our first stop was a restaurant called Cornichon in Mont Royal for lunch.  Shelley had a croque monsieur and I had a chicken club sandwich.  Hers was way better than mine, though mine was good.   We then headed to Old Montreal.  We took the Metro to the Place D' Arms stop, which drops you right at the border of this section of the city.

The first landmark we came upon was the Notre Dame Basilica.  The facade of this buildings is beautiful.  We unfortunately arrived a bit too late to go inside, but are planning to do so later in the week.

We wandered the streets for a bit and walked into an art gallery featuring the new exhibit from Barbara Cole.  It was the first time seeing her work, and this particular exhibit was called "Two People Walking on a Tightrope in an Ordinary Life Full of Extraordinary Moments." She took pictures of people both on land and in the water from under water, then used editing to transform the pictures into something spectacular.  The pictures animate as you move past them in any direction, creating an amazing effect.  You can watch a report from the CBC on the exhibition below.

After walking through a few more exhibits, we found our way to a restaurant where we enjoyed a nice cold beverage and took some time to soak in the views.  We stopped at a place called Bevo which had a great view down a few streets.  And beer.

Old Montreal has a very European feel, with cobblestone streets, many of them closed to car traffic.  There are lots of open air restaurants and people playing music all over the place.  One of the more clever ones is in the video below.  Watch the kids chase his cup around to put money in it.  

We ended the day with dinner at Pizzeria Napoletana, a neat Italian restaurant in the Little Italy section of the city.  We ordered two pizzas, which was plenty for us.  The pizzas are the thin crust variety we ate all over Italy a few years ago.  We really enjoyed the food here, and the atmosphere was fun as well with lots of people scurrying about.

Tomorrow we are planning to go out to the Olympic Stadium area, and perhaps a few other things depending on what we feel like.

Look kids, nuns, monks

After a very long day of travel (US Air, your seats are ridiculously close together and your flight attendants are not so nice, but God bless your in seat on demand video), we are home after the whirlwind that was Rome. As relaxing and peaceful our time was in Tuscany, Rome was the exact opposite! Here are some of my best memories from our time there:

When you walked out of our apartment and looked right, there was the colosseum. I know. It never got old.

Cappuccinos and cornetti for breakfast every morning-two doors away from the apartment entrance. The coffee was SO good.

I loved walking around Trastevere and eating there at 10 Friday night made me feel like a real Roman. The food was amazing. This is the recurring theme of our trip.

I was disappointed in St. Peter's and I really disliked the area around it. Every other church we went into in Italy had such a reverent feeling and people were posing for silly pictures by St. Peters' confession booths and making "I'm cool" signs for pictures in front of the Pieta (thankfully, none of them were Americans). It just didn't feel like I expected it to and while I'm glad I've seen it (the scale is hard to imagine without actually being there), I was really glad to leave. We decided ahead of time we were going to forgo the Vatican Museum and I'm glad we made that decision. So, we did, in fact, go to Rome and not see the Sistine Chapel.

Dinner Saturday night at der Pallaro was one of the best meals we had on the whole trip. I loved they just bring out whatever Signora Paola is cooking that day. It was all delicious and unique. The lentils were probably my favorite, maybe because they tasted a lot my my grandmother's black-eyed peas? That's kind of what it felt like, eating at your Italian grandmother's house.

Trevi Fountain is way bigger than I expected and you should definitely see it at night. Same for the Spanish steps. The colosseum looks smaller from the outside than I expected, but bigger once you are inside.

Bafetto for pizza on Saturday night was delicious and quite an experience. I loved watching the waiters yell at each other (really wish I understood more Italian) and Margaret did get a smile out of the very gruff pizza maker.

Walking through Piazza Navona one night, watching the street performers and listening to a guy play guitar. He happened to be playing one of my favorite songs (Fragile) and it was a beautiful combination of sights, sounds, smells, etc. Oddly, that song was also on the radio in the car on the way to the airport.

We had great Gelato in Rome, at Gelataria della Scalla, the Crematorium, and ending at Giolitti (probably the most famous) on our last night there. My favorite combo is a tie between dark chocolate/hazelnut and chocolate/pistachio.

One down side to all of these sights, is the constant hawking of roses, toys for the kids, etc. These are not like NY street vendors where you approach them if you are interested. They get up in your face and won't leave you alone. I know they are trying to make a living, but it is irritating when you just want to enjoy the moment.

Our new German friends had the perfect description for how we wanted to experience Italy. They describe it as "inhaling" a place. We didn't want to go from place to place, take pictures, walk by the art and hurry on to the next thing. Some of my favorite times on this trip have been sitting and eating or having a drink and watching the world go by.

Like Scott has said in previous posts, we will post more of the details of the trip. I plan on captioning the pictures, putting together a slide show (want to come over and see the slides from our vacation?), etc. That's assuming I ever get the laundry done.

Day Fifteen - Ostia Antica And Rome

We took a day trip out of Rome to the seaside village of Ostia Antica yesterday.  Ostia was the first and primary port city for the Roman civilization, founded about 400 years B.C.  The city was covered by a swamp during the middle ages, after the river changed direction and was abandoned.  It was first rediscovered in the 19th century and the archaeological digs started in earnest in the 20th century.

The trip to Ostia is an easy Metro ride of about 40 minutes.  We met Danilo there, a tour guide recommended to me by someone in the US.  It turned out that Danilo was much more than a tour guide, and he brought this ancient city to life.  We walked through each section of the city, which was much larger than we had expected.  The city is a picture of "real life" during ancient Rome.  Pompeii was the center of wealth, but Ostia was the center of commerce and regular people's way of life.  It was interesting to see not only where and how people lived, but where they worshiped the Roman gods, where they baked their bread, and where commerce was conducted.  There were stunning mosaics that are still very well preserved that told the story of life in the city.  The kids had an absolute ball, climbing all over the walls and ducking in and out of all of the housing, exploring tunnels and the theater.

We spent about four hours there, learning about not only this part of Rome but also the rule of the Caesars, the foundations of La Cosa Nostra, and also modern Italian politics.  Danilo, who is a teacher in Italy today, was fascinating and truly amazing in his depth of knowledge of the rich history of modern-day Italy.

We took the train back into Rome after eating a lunch of freshly sliced meats and cheeses in Ostia.  After some much-needed R&R, we took the bus over to Baffeto, a restaurant touted to have "the best pizza in Rome."  We heard about it from the guy who is renting us our apartment.  By the time we got there ( about 7:30 ) a small line had formed.  Given that Italians usually don't eat till at least 8, it was a good sign that there was already a line.  We got sat right beside where they actually make the pizzas, which initially I thought was a lousy seat.  However, after about five minutes we realized we had the best seats in the house.  The assembly line to crank out the pizzas was crazy fast.  There was a guy that, for the entire time we were there ( about 2 hours ), rolled out one pizza after another at a remarkable pace.  The next guy put all of the toppings on and managed the oven process.  The waiters periodically stopped by to pick up their orders and, from what we could tell, argue a lot about who got which pizzas.  The owner walked around just sort of keeping order, and the owner's wife managed the money.  It was completely insane, and a lot of fun to watch.  Oh, and the pizza was delicious.  Baffetos is an absolute must for a stop in Rome.

After dinner we went to Crematoria for gelato, which is right by the Pantheon.  They had peach gelato there ( it was the first time I had seen it on the trip ), so I got peach and banana.  Everyone else got pretty much their standard flavors.

After another short walk, we caught the bus back to our apartment and crashed.  Today is our last day in Italy.  We are headed to the coliseum and some of the other more famous landmarks right around us, then probably back to Baffetos for dinner to finish things off.

What an amazing trip it has been.  We leave Italy about 11:00 tomorrow morning and land in Charlotte around 4 in the afternoon.  We posted some pictures last night from the first few days in Rome, and will post a bunch more when we get home.

Thanks for reading along with us.  When we get back we will write in detail about what we packed, how we got around, and other things that might be interesting for anyone considering making a similar trip.

Day Fourteen - Day Two In Rome

We got a late start yesterday morning after having some difficulty locating either ( a ) a supermarket or ( b ) a decent breakfast place.  We eventually found some fuel to get going and headed for St. Peters Square.  It was our first trip on the Roman subway system and our first real encounter on this trip with massive crowds.  The day was going to be hot and long.

We got off the subway at St. Peters and walked into what has been our least favorite part of this trip.  The street from the subway to the Piazza was lined with all manner of people hawking all manner of goods and services, including private tours of the vatican, cheap luggage, sunglasses, and everything else under the sun.  The people selling were very aggressive, shoving things into our faces the entire way to the square.  Once we got to St. Peters, the line to get into the basilica was quite long.  As we took the time to look around, it was an amazing spectacle.  We happened to get in line behind this group of French tourists that were taking pictures every three steps.  Apparently they wanted pictures of each other from every possible angle in front of the church.  We were constantly getting people cutting in line because of the wide gaps they were causing, so I eventually got upset enough that I started to walk around them and get in front.  That seemed to put the kibosh on their picture taking for the time being.

We eventually made our way inside the church.  I can't begin to explain how massive the building itself is.  We had planned to make our way to the top of the dome, but the line for that was too long and moving too slow, so we passed on that.  The first part of the tour took us down into the crypt where all of the popes are buried.      We saw the grave of Pope John Paul II, the only pope I really remember in my lifetime.  There were people stopping to throw roses on his grave as we went past.  After a bit of delay, we made it up into the main sanctuary.  They had significant portions of it roped off, but we walked around the parts that were open and learned about the various points of important architecture.  Dominating the interior of the church is the eight-story bronze baldacchino, the papal alter.  The bronze to make the alter was taken from the pantheon.  This massive structure looks small in the context of the rest of the building, to give you some perspective on how large the interior space is.  There was also a mass happening in the midst of thousands of people milling about and taking pictures.  We saw people posing for pictures in confessionals and just about everywhere else.  After having been in cathedrals in other parts of Italy where silence was strictly enforced, as well as no picture taking, we found the scene at the root of Catholicism to be more than a bit strange.

We finished up our tour of St Peters with a few pictures from the outside.  We had decided to skip the Sistine Chapel before we got to Rome.  We got back on the metro after a quick lunch and went back to the apartment.  The kids were burnt out from a very late night the night before, so we spent an hour and a half or so letting them rest for a bit.

We then headed out for a night on the town.  We took the metro to Piazza Del Popolo and walked around there for a half an hour or so.  There was some definite sketchiness both in and around the piazza, and not much was happening, so we boarded a bus and went to Piazza Novana on our way to Campo D'Fiori.  We ate dinner at Trattoria Der Pallaro.  We had gotten several recommendations for this spot before our trip.  There is no menu at this restaurant.  You eat whatever they are making on that day, and the menu changes daily.  It is a four-course meal including wine, and it was easily the best meal of our trip.  We started the antipasti, which consisted of a plate of salami and some other meat that could have been pastrami or prosciutto.  We also had a plate of fresh fennel, some corn fritters ( or at least that is what they tasted like ) and a plate of spicy lentils.  The second course was a dish of two kinds of pasta.  There was a tomato pasta  and a butter pasta that had chunks of panchetta in it.  Both were delicious.  Following the pasta, we had a serving of what I would describe as pot roast, served with fresh mozzarella.  The last course was a healthy portion of pastry cake served with fresh strawberries.  It was an amazing meal.

We left the restaurant needing to walk off our food.   We wandered up the Via Del Corso to Trevi Fountain ( along with the rest of Rome it appeared ).  It is so nice to walk around Rome at night.  All of the monuments and things are lit up, making for some great scenery.  After leaving the Trevi fountain, we headed for the Spanish steps.  We made our way to the top which provided an incredible view of the top of the city.  It was 11:00 and our kids were about to drop over, so we jumped on the metro and headed for the apartment.

The day had started with a less than favorable experience at St Peters, but ended with a great night out, enjoying Rome at its finest.

Today we are going to Ostia Antica, and not sure what else.  We are meeting a friend of a friend there, who is  going to walk us around a bit today.

Until tomorrow...