We've attended at least one Atlanta United away game each year (in Chicago, San Jose, and Salt Lake City), and this year we had our eye on a game in Montreal. David visited Montreal way back in 2012, but Paul had never been. So we booked our flights and spent a long weekend exploring the French-Canadian city.
We landed at night, and went straight to our AirBnB in the Le Plateau-Mont-Royal neighborhood. Our place was in a cute residential area with tree-lined streets and shops and restaurants. We highly recommend this area just northwest of downtown, as it's close to everything and has good transit access. The next morning we started with a long walk through several neighborhoods. We strolled through St Louis square and grabbed some coffee at Cafe Nocturne before walking by Parc du Portugal and getting a bagel at Fairmount. Montreal is famous for their wood-fired bagels, and Fairmount has been around since 1919.
Montreal is a great city for biking.
The fountain in St. Louis square.
Lots of pretty housing stock in Montreal.
A pedestrian street near our AirBnb.
Fancy coffee and a golden bike.
The city has a lot of murals and street art.
Parc du Portugal had cobblestones similar to what we saw in Lisbon.
More street art!
Fairmount bagel.
Bagel time!
A big Italian grocery store in the Mile End neighborhood.
Montreal is great for wandering, with tree-lined streets.
Our next stop was the church our lady of defense, which oddly has a fresco that includes Mussolini, before continuing on to the Jean Talon Market. It's a pretty big market and worth visiting for the food options, but we decided to hold off and eat lunch on our way back towards the old port area. We caught the Metro and it was packed because Montreal was hosting a climate march. That meant public transit was free for the day, which was a great bonus for us, but it was also really crowded. Hundreds of thousands of people attended the march, including prime minister Trudeau and Swedish high school climate superstar Greta Thunberg. We had poutine for lunch at La Banquise, then walked through part of Fontaine Park with a brief stop at our AirBnB before continuing to the touristy old town area.
Mussolini is up there. Can you find him?!
Jean Talon Market.
Some climate marchers getting ready a few hours before the event.
Not the last poutine we'd have on this trip!
Fontaine park on a beautiful sunny fall day.
After a quick stop at our AirBnb, we hopped back on the Metro to old town, the historic center of Montreal. One interesting thing about Montreal's Metro - despite looking like trains, the subway is actually a series of rubber tire buses; like the Metro system in Mexico City or the Plane Train at the Atlanta airport. The metro is also almost exclusively in French. About 15% of Montreal's population speaks English as their first language, but the city government signs almost nothing in English. No English instructions, no English announcements, and only the slightest amount of English on some emergency signs. We assume this is an attempt to hold up the French language history of the city, but it was a bit odd. MARTA in Atlanta signs most things in English and Spanish and we don't have 15% of our population speaking Spanish as a first language. It was still very easy and convenient to take public transit around the city. The metro was unique in being French only, as around the rest of the city just about everything is in French and English, and you can easily get around without speaking a single word of French. It's a true bilingual city.
We started our afternoon by visiting Notre Dame cathedral, and then continued on to Pointe-à-Callière, the museum of archaeology and history. It's a neat museum in historic buildings, and includes some original foundations from old Montreal buildings. You can even walk through an old sewer. It's a bit pricey, but gives a good overview of the history of the city. We walked around old town a bit more, taking in the waterfront and visiting the sailor's church.
Yay, free subway! In French only.
The crowd heading to the climate march.
Old town has some great architecture.
Notre Dame cathedral.
The inside is impressive. Beautiful blues and golds.
A cute little cafe in old town.
Pointe-à-Callière had a high-tech video in this unique room.
Walking through the old sewer.
David's a pirate!
Old town Montreal is very European.
The Sailors Church.
After a long day of walking, it was time for happy hour! We decided to check out a couple of breweries. Our first stop was Four Origins, a very popular microbrewery. It was great weather for hanging out in the indoor/outdoor space. The beer was pretty good too. We continued southwest along the canal to Terrasse St. Ambroise, a huge beer garden in an industrial area. We sat and relaxed for a while and enjoyed a flight of samples. By now we were hungry, and we walked to Satay Brothers in the Saint-Henri neighborhood. While still close to downtown, this is more of a locals neighborhood, with a few bars and restaurants along Notre Dame street.
Side note - we noticed this at Satay brothers but also at most restaurants in Montreal. They all play extremely loud music, usually American rap or hip hop. It's quite odd, as it happens even at breakfast. At Four Origins it was difficult to even talk across the table because the rap music was so loud. It seems to be something Montreal restaurants do to show off their hipster credentials.
After dinner at Satay brothers, we hopped on the nearest metro station and headed back to near our AirBnB. On the way we stopped at Dumpling Hut and got a few chive and pork dumplings to snack on that evening along with some dessert from St Louis Pastries in the metro station. All-in-all a good first full day in Montreal!
Our good friends Janice and Peter got married in Toronto in October. David had never been to Toronto, so we booked six days to hang out with old and new friends and explore Canada's biggest city. Toronto is a very livable city. It might not have headliner tourist attractions, but what it does have is walkable, bikeable neighborhoods with a diverse population and great food. Just don't come in winter. :)
We stayed with friends in an AirBnB near Trinity Bellwoods Park. It's a really cute neighborhood just a couple miles from downtown. The weather was beautiful - mostly cool sunny days, and the trees were vibrant with autumn colors. This Toronto wedding blog post will start with two pictures of squirrels, and end with a picture of a world map. Because, why not?
Most of the squirrels in Toronto are black...
... but the park next to our AirBnB is famous for its white squirrels. We spotted one!
The main way to get from our AirBnB to the city was along Queen Street. This street is lined for miles with small commercial buildings with apartments above. Most of the shops are locally owned independent stores, which made it really cute. David found a vintage video game store and walked away with a few prizes. We also found a Japanese import store and bought a couple of really beautiful ramen bowls. It's nice to visit cities with corridors like this!
Queen Street, right near our AirBnB, was vibrant and bustling.
I'm not sure what they sell here.
A coffee shop sign. This was before the election. No comment.
As a city, Toronto feels like a mix between Chicago and New York. You often get views like in the next two pictures where it really feels like a big city. But with only about 5.5 million people in the metro area, Toronto is more similar in size to metro Atlanta. It's really amazing how much impact design has on how a place looks and feels.
One major complaint we had about Toronto was transportation. It's pretty hard to get around Toronto if you want to go further than a mile or two. They have really limited subway lines and the rest of transit is in-traffic street cars and buses. We ended up walking really long distances, which we're generally fine with since the weather was nice, or relying on uber. With the good exchange rate for American to Canadian dollars, uber wasn't so bad...but we still ended up stuck in traffic quite a few times. They do have a fairly comprehensive bike share and a few nice cycle paths.
View of the north end of the city's skyline from the University of Toronto.
The interesting architecture of the Royal Ontario Museum.
Chihuly exhibit at the ROM. This was a beautiful exhibit.
A huge new residential building. Condos are sprouting up everywhere in Toronto.
Of course we had ramen!
After exploring the Royal Ontario Museum and finding lunch, we met up with some folks for the first day/night of drinking. We started by some bars near the CN Tower and made our way gradually back towards our AirBnB. Toronto has lots of great bars and a real beer culture, so Paul was enjoying himself!
View of the CN Tower behind Union Station.
The top of the CN Tower doesn't fit in the frame. It's still the tallest structure in North America, not including radio masts.
We went to a lot of beer places in Toronto. This one was Bar Hop, where we had some excellent stouts and IPAs.
Surprise bachelor dinner, with lots more beer!
The following day we wandered around town a bit more and found some great Korean food. Toronto has tons of expat enclaves, including a Koreatown lined with restaurants and shops that reminded us of our trip to Korea. While there we found a restaurant that serves dalkgalbi (something we haven't found in Atlanta). It's basically chicken with cabbage and rice cakes (tteok) in a spicy gochujang sauce that's cooked in front of you! Yum!
After lunch, we met up with a group of the guys and the groom to throw axes for fun at BATL (we'd love to see a place like this in Atlanta). Axe throwing is surprisingly fun and we made a tournament out of it. Unfortunately, we didn't win...but didn't do too shabby!
Our AirBnB was in a cute residential neighborhood.
Koreatown was a short walk away.
We found dalkgalbi, one of our favorite Korean foods!
The official bachelor party started with an axe throwing contest. Yes, axe throwing.
David was better than Paul.
The axe throwing and tournament went on for about 2 hours. In case you were wondering, axe throwing can be dangerous...but luckily no one lost a toe or finger in the video below. :)
After the axe throwing, the bachelor party went out on the town for drinks and food before rejoining with the ladies for karaoke and more booze. So much drinking...you guys, you don't even know...
Downtown Toronto at night.
Private room karaoke!
The next day was still a full day before the wedding so we took time to explore more of Toronto. We found entire streets with tons of graffiti art, similar to Atlanta. We also found our way to some boxcar restaurants that included great poutine, which google tells us is probably the national dish of Canada according to a recent "poutition" to the government.
Here's a cool fish mural we found. There's a lot of street art in Toronto.
That evening we were scheduled to join the wedding party for a rehearsal dinner down by the waterfront at Amsterdam Brewery. Due to previously mentioned transportation issues, we opted to just walk the two miles. There are lots of parks close to the lake and trails and beautiful green-space. After dinner, we wandered around downtown more with the wedding party and friends and found our way to a few more fun little bars and pubs.
A nice little park near the waterfront.
So. Much. Beer. This time at Amsterdam Brewery.
The view of the waterfront from the rehearsal dinner venue.
The next day was the big day! Janice and Peter's wedding! Since Paul was part of the wedding party, we just hung out with Peter all morning while he got ready and everyone figured out how to tie a bow tie. Early in the afternoon we took an uber over to the bride's AirBnB across town for them to officially get hitched ahead of the reception and "fake wedding" at the distillery district. The venue was really amazing. The space was cute and there was a beautiful outdoor area filled with flowers and lights and brick/cobblestone flooring.
Practicing tying bow-ties. Craig figured it out eventually, thanks to youtube.
A giant groom bib, to avoid food spillage. Necessary.
This was the official wedding. Shhh, don't tell anybody!
The venue was awesome. And the rain held off!
Cute!
The bride and groom in the distillery district.
We heart Toronto!
Really cool paper flowers made out of maps.
This is 100% candid.
Peter and Paul!
Janice and Paul!
The first dance.
Does every Canadian wedding come with a midnight poutine bar?
Post-wedding festivities. I love this picture. It was 5:30AM.
After a super late night, our last day in Toronto was mostly just resting up and detoxing from days of drinking and eating. We got together with the wedding party for brunch at the Craft Brasserie and Grill and we managed to meet up with Andrew and Brad, some of Paul's roller coaster friends back at the distillery district, for a final dinner.
We had time to squeeze in a little more beer with our friends Andrew and Brad - our final meal in Toronto!
Our AirBnB had a world map for guests to stick pins in for their home city.
We had a fantastic time at a beautiful wedding in a beautiful city. Congrats to Janice and Peter!
