Next day we had crepes for breakfast, then went for a look up Mont Royal, or as we thought of it, Hill Royal, although compared to the surrounding landscape I can understand why they chose to dub it a mountain.
Being Canada, there are Squirrels galore here. The whole thing about needing to stockpile stores for winter doesn't seem to matter to these guys, the made some trees look like they were full of Xmas baubles, and what was dropped on the ground was even easier to get
Mont Royal, as well as being the inspiration for the city's name of Montreal, is a winter (and I suppose summer) playground. The paths that normally would take walkers, joggers and cyclists in the summer are groomed by a machine for cross country skiing. Wait a second, though, what's this?
Those are some big ass studded snow tyres on those mountain bikes, so not all summer activities are off because of the snow and bitter cold. What's even more incredible, the number of nutters still out jogging, and then the big group of boot camp style exercise, running up flights of stairs and then coming down on their hands and knees, carrying inner tubes full of sand. :wow: Whackjobs, I say!
Though I did spy this just off the track
The view out over the city. No wonder this place has a thriving underground network of trains, shops, walkways. I'm sure it looks nicer in the summer with green trees and all
Just across the way from the lookout is the Chalet, built by some ski club or something. a rather grand structure, and a safe haven for a warm up and hot chocolate
Whilst my fiancée returns to our accommodation my sister and I head down to the port area to have a look at the science museum, though we get there a little late and only have about an hour before closing time. The exhibition we went to see was crap, so checked out other more interesting parts, then got booted out.
Went to a pub for a sample of local breweries dark beers. Some very interesting ones, like maple, which is sickly sweet, and one of the ambers has whiskey, making it around 12%... Yoiks!
We were lead to believe that there was an ice hotel in town, over near the Biodome, so we went off in search of it, only to find out it wasn't actually in town this year
Jacques Cartier Bridge and the supposed location of the non existent ice hotel
The river is flowing, but full of ice and snow
The Biodome, from Expo '67, no longer covered, it houses some sort of environmental museum, which we forego, but have a closer look at the structure
Bagels are great with cream cheese, and a bit of vegemite out of the tube we brought with us.
This local shop makes them fresh, and you can see the process from dough, where the guy rolls out a thin piece, wraps it round his hand, breaks it off, roll the ends together, then the doughy bagel gets boiled prior to going into the oven for the golden, crispy outside. My sister even saw a bag of Tasmanian Alkaloids poppy seeds in this shop once
Only shot of the Metro, which looks like some strange mash between a train and a bus
That's it for Montreal, next stop, New York City!