Adventures of David and Paul: Montreal Part Deux

After spending our first day walking all around Montreal, our rainy second day started with brunch at L'Avenue, which was delicious and over-the-top. Because of the weather we decided to visit a museum, and walked to the Redpath Museum. It's a small but interesting natural history museum in a historic building on the campus of McGill University. The exhibits are a bit dated but the museum is free and the architecture is impressive. We spent a little time at a cafe downtown to wait out some of the rain before heading to St. Helen's island to visit La Ronde amusement park.

Rainy morning in Montreal.

Way too much food!

Banana nutella french toast with coconut and bourbon maple syrup.

Fall was just arriving.

The front of the Redpath Museum.

View of downtown Montreal from the steps of the museum.

The main exhibit hall.

An advertisement for our game!

The biosphere museum on the island, not far from La Ronde.

La Ronde isn't a great park, but it was the largest amusement park in the western hemisphere that Paul hadn't visited yet. Cross this one off the list! It does have a fun Batman clone and a pretty good Goliath coaster. We got the credits and caught an Uber back across the river to the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve neighborhood, where we stopped by a retro video game store and got a snack at the marche maisonnueve. This market/foodhall is in some new buildings next door to the historic 1912 market building. From there we took the metro part way back to our AirBnb, and walked through the gay neighborhood, which is quite large in Montreal. We rested for a bit before dinner.

Rainy day means no crowds!

Paul at La Ronde.

The Olympic stadium tower looming in the distance.

The old market building.

Inside the new market.

Rainbow flags.

Portuguese chicken for dinner.

The next morning we were greeted with sunny clear skies, so we decided to walk up to the viewpoint at the top of Mont Royal. Along the way we grabbed a coffee from the tiny and adorable Oh My Deer cafe, then continued to the mountain up winding trails. It was pretty crowded because of the great weather, but it was an enjoyable little hike and we were rewarded with amazing views across the city.

Montreal's row-houses and apartments have a lot of winding stairs.

A back alley.

Montreal also has a lot of funky architecture and murals.

It's Paul's store!

Lets climb up there!

Paul on the trail.

David at the top, featuring sun rays.

Great view of the city!

Walking back down.

We walked back down the mountain toward the city, and walked a bit around downtown and St Catherine's street, eventually making our way to a restaurant called Arepera for lunch. They had good arepas and fresh fruit juices. We made a quick stop back at our Airbnb to change and get warmer clothing for the soccer game.

We walked by the museum of fine arts but didn't have time to go inside.

A restaurant street in downtown.

Downtown Montreal.

The Edward VII monument in Phillip's Square.

Pork arepa!

We took the train to the main event of the weekend: Atlanta United vs. Montreal Impact. Montreal's soccer stadium is in a multi-use stadium area that includes the 1976 Olympic stadium. The soccer stadium isn't the nicest, but maybe we're just spoiled by Mercedes Benz stadium. The game ended in a tie, but we had a great time. At the end of the game the Montreal supporters group invited all of the Atlanta United fans over and we had fun singing together. Class act, Montreal!

Under the stands in Stade Saputo.

Ready for the game.

Find Paul!

On the way home we had a late dinner at Co Ut, a Vietnamese restaurant near our AirBnB. The next morning we went to the airport for our flight connecting in Toronto. Our plane was a WestJet (code-shared with Delta) turbo prop! As we started going down the runway to take off, the plane suddenly decelerated and we pulled over to the side. Turns out there was a problem with the front tire and they had to abort take off. The flight ended up getting canceled, but Delta re-booked us on a direct flight to Atlanta and we ended up arriving at about the same time we were originally scheduled. Yay for Delta customer service!

Montreal is a great city and should be on your travel radar. It's very accessible, but has an international multi-lingual flair, walkable neighborhoods, and a variety of attractions.