Les poissons, les poissons, how I love les poissons........and poutine

Ah Montreal, we had such a great time in Montreal. We left on a Thursday night, June 12th, and landed around 12:30am. We got a really good deal on flights thanks to Sarah notifying me of a seat sale Westjet was having between Montreal, Toronto, and Quebec City. Thanks Sarah!!!! It was cool flying in to Montreal b/c out of my window you could see downtown and on one of the buildings at the top they have really bright lights rotating like a lighthouse. I only realized just before we landed that we were in the province of Quebec and that I'd never been to Quebec before. Darcie hadn't either. We were both looking forward to hearing some french being spoken. We managed to find the shuttle we wanted which took you downtown, which is where our hotel was, called Hotel de Paris. That's Paris Hotel for those of you who require the translation.
While waiting in the shuttle, Darcie and I struck up a conversation with a guy that flew in from St Thomas for business. He lives there year round and is originally from Florida. I told him I'd been there and it was the most beautiful place I'd seen. He was a nice guy - not your stereotypical American. We got to our hotel around 2am. It was a pretty cool place. 100 year old mansion with lots of character. http://www.hotel-montreal.com/ We knew we weren't going to be spending too much time at the hotel so we didn't mind if it wasn't that great but we both liked it. We stayed there Friday and Saturday and had to get up at 4:30 in the morning Sunday to catch our flight back to Toronto. Oh well. For breakfast, we headed to a little bistro that was open in the morning, right underneath the hotel. They made us croissants stuffed with eggs and cheese. The croissants were so fresh and so good. Not hard and flaky.
The first day we decided to check out Mount Royal. A big park on a hill near downtown with a great view of Montreal. When we were done, we headed to an area for lunch we had heard about from a lady I used to work with at Custom Plastics. She's from Montreal so I got in touch with her and she told us about all the places we should check out and where good places to eat were, etc. One of her suggestions for a place to stay while we were there was Hotel de Paris. Anyway, on our way to lunch we were walking on St Catherines street which is just like Robson street in Vancouver or Yonge street in Toronto. Lots of shopping and very busy. We ended up eating at a nice pub and of course had poutine. Poutine there is so good. Much better than A&W's poutine.
After lunch we strolled up St Catherines street the opposite way and made our way to Parc La Fontaine. It's a beautiful park with a fountain at one end of it. We relaxed there for a while, pet lots of dogs, and did a lot of dog watching. We headed back to the hotel for a nap and to get ready for dinner. For dinner, we checked out the restaurants on a popular street called St Denis. We ate on a second level balcony at an Italian style restaurant. After dinner we strolled around a bit, then headed back to the hotel.
The next day, Saturday, we decided we'd check out old Montreal, down on the waterfront. We took the subway there cause we didn't feel like walking the distance. When we boarded the subway, Darcie saw someone she knew from highschool that she graduated with, Megan Stewart. It was so random. We couldn't believe the odds of that happening. They chatted until our stop came. We spent most of the day down there. It was really cool to see so many buildings built in the late 1600's, early 1700's and still being used. Walking around the streets down at the waterfront made you feel like you were in Europe with all the old buildings. We had lunch at the main square and ofcourse had poutine again. There are so many bistros and sidewalk restaurants everywhere. There were so many nice ones, it was hard to choose where to eat for lunch. We watched a street performer for a bit, then headed back to the hotel for a nap. We relaxed at the Fountain park again for a while. Then for dinner, we decided to eat at a restaurant we noticed in Old Montreal that had a really nice atmosphere. There was live jazz, and the outside courtyard had lots of seating with no roof - it was all exposed to the open air but had huge umbrella's covering everyone incase it started to rain. The atmosphere was really nice. Nice lighting and one edge of the courtyard was blocked off from the sidewalk by the old facade of the previous building that used to occupy the space. Food and service was great as well. We really enjoyed it. After dinner we strolled around like everyone else and just relaxed.
At the end of the weekend, our legs, knees, and feet were pretty soar from all the walking we'd done. Sarah, I'm sure you and Leah could relate when you went on that trip together.
While we were there, we spoke English the whole time. Thankfully people in Montreal are forgiving with that and pretty much everyone is fluent in English and French. Not as much in Quebec City I hear though. Darcie picked up on a lot of conversations and would then tell me what people were saying.
All in all, we had a really nice weekend exploring the city of Montreal together.

Enjoying some poutine for lunch at a bistro in the main square of Old Montreal

Darcie enjoying some poutine too

Down at the waterfront after dinner Saturday with the main square behind us

The main square in Old Montreal