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!

Times Square visits

When visitors are here, especially when it's their first New York experience, there are certain things that they just have to see. 

And as we've had quite a few visitors recently it follows that we've made several post-dinner trips to Times Square to take in the crazy neon spectacle and even crazier crowds.

It may not be cool, or somewhere that real New Yorkers would ever hang out but it is completely overwhelming and so unlike anything in the UK that I kind of love it for that. 

In very small doses.

 We even squeezed onto the big screen! Can you spot us?

 

Saturday at the seaside

A few weeks back, whilst we had the lovely Shantha staying with us, we spent a warm and muggy Saturday at Coney Island in Brooklyn.

The whole place was so colourful and we had so much fun! 

It was felt a bit like stepping back in time to a 1950s beach resort complete with boardwalk, amusement park, ballroom dancing and sideshows.

We relaxed on the beach, flew a kite and did some paddling in the sea.

Then explored the beach-side theme park. We didn't actually commit to any of the rides but enjoyed watching. Next time I need to try the log flume!

 Next was lunch at the Famous Nathan's (home of the annual July 4th hotdog eating competition!). 

Two varieties of hotdog for Dave, classic and corn-dog, whilst Shantha and I stuck with corn-on-the-cob and fries (I'm still put off by all those 'what's really in your hotdog' stories. Eyelids apparently).

We spent a good while walking along the board walk enjoying some of the best people watching I've experienced in ages (including groups of people playing music and dancing on the pier and lots of proper New York accents of the sort you really don't hear very often!)

As it turned into evening we enjoyed a few beers at one of the bars on the boardwalk. The place actually got busier as it got later and it really couldn't have felt more different to Manhattan!

 To end our day-trip on an adrenalin high we decided we should attempt the 100 year old wooden roller-coaster, The Cyclone.

 Shantha and I somehow ended up in the very front carriage, squished into the little sofa seats with just a rickety old bar holding us in. Eek!

I actually screamed the whole way round but it was amazing!!

 We will be back Coney Island!