Montreal Favorites

This past May I realized my dream of going to Montreal. It was just as I imagined.  My favorite places were Mount Royal Park and Olive & Gourmando.


Mont Royal Park was quintessentially perfect and how I think everyone should spend a Sunday. Picnicking, hiking, spending time with family, listening to musicians, in nature. It was delightful.  I think my delight was magnified by how many people were at the park doing all these things. It is a little sad to visit a park and to be the only one there.  Here there was laughter, excited conversations, birds singing, music, the smell of barbecue in the air.  I wished I had brought more sensible shoes. I love to walk and here it was normal.

Olive & Gourmando, in Old Montreal, has the most delicious croissants imaginable paired with a latte. Mmmm I was in heaven sipping my latte and people watching. The French have style.

 


I ate out in style in the evenings, delighting in flavors.

I shopped and spent too much money. I bought the most precious French ballet rag dolls that you have ever seen.

I bicycled along the canal and had an ice cream cone at the Atwater Market.  Everywhere in Montreal I saw people bicycling, walking, running, it is no wonder that they are so thin. I rode the subway to the Biodome and missed most of the creatures for all of the school groups chattering, but the ones I saw I was thrilled by. I went to the Canadian Centre for Architecture and Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. I missed seeing Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal and for that I will just have to go back I have decided.

I was there for a conference but I am glad I took a few days of vacation to explore the city.