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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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| Montreal is a great city for biking. |
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| The fountain in St. Louis square. |
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| Lots of pretty housing stock in Montreal. |
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| A pedestrian street near our AirBnb. |
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| Fancy coffee and a golden bike. |
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| The city has a lot of murals and street art. |
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| Parc du Portugal had cobblestones similar to what we saw in Lisbon. |
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| More street art! |
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| Fairmount bagel. |
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| Bagel time! |
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| A big Italian grocery store in the Mile End neighborhood. |
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| 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.
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| Mussolini is up there. Can you find him?! |
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| Jean Talon Market. |
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| Some climate marchers getting ready a few hours before the event. |
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| Not the last poutine we'd have on this trip! |
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| 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.
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| Yay, free subway! In French only. |
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| The crowd heading to the climate march. |
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| Old town has some great architecture. |
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| Notre Dame cathedral. |
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| The inside is impressive. Beautiful blues and golds. |
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| A cute little cafe in old town. |
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| Pointe-à-Callière had a high-tech video in this unique room. |
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| Walking through the old sewer. |
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| David's a pirate! |
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| Old town Montreal is very European. |
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| 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!
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| Four Origins brewery. |
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| Terrasse St. Ambroise. |
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| Paul's happy! Flights for days. |
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| Satay Brothers. |
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| Dinner time! |
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| Fruity boozy drinks-a-plenty. |
