Montreal

We recently had a wonderful, chilly long weekend reunion with our favourite Frenchies in Montreal. 

It was my first time to Canada and I really liked it but also generally felt a bit confused by the combination of North American, British and (in Montreal at least) French influences.

We stayed in a great studio apartment in the Plateau district surrounded by hundreds of restaurants, shops, bars and coffee places that even passed the Dave coffee taste-test.

So of course there was plenty of eating and drinking to be done...

Including one of the best brunches I think I've ever eaten (sorry New York!)

Montreal's most famous bagels (I'm really not enough of a connoisseur to weigh in on the fierce New York vs. Montreal bagel rivalry...)

And Montreal's speciality - Poutine. Which does taste better than it looks. But not that much better...

We even managed to have coffee from our favourite place three times - a surefire way to feel like a local!

Other than that we did a lot of walking and exploring including McGill University, Mont Royal, the Modern Art Museum, the Botanics, Old Montreal, Olympic Park and the old pier. I didn't realise till we got there how much we needed a little break from NYC but it was perfect timing.

Everything was a bit quiet and we got the sense people had started going into hibernation mode. 

I'd love to go back in summer.

Frequent lonely planet/map stops as always!