Montreal – The city with lots of laughter, food and another lesson learned

I arrived via train in Montreal, just 2 hours from Ottawa. Again, I love the free WIFI on the train and being able to check last minute messages, such as change of departures or routes.

The hostel I had booked here was the 20$ Hostel at Sherbrooke Est, around a 30 minute walk or 10 minutes with the Metro from the Montreal Central Station. A single journey would be 3$. Me being me I decided to walk the distance, and it wasn’t really bad beside the facts that it rained and I was wearing my ballerinas.

I learned that the hostel I booked can be found under a different name as well:

20$ Hostel

Auberge de Paris Backpackers Hostel

These are just different buildings, but from the location pretty much the same as well as the owner.

Long Story short, the Hostel gives you the basics. Maybe the people staying at the Hostel at the moment, the ones that came for the Grand Prix this weekend are just dirtier than the usual visitors. The hostel is pretty much a mess all the time and parties are going deep into the night. I don’t really mind and put on my headphones for the night.

As soon as I had checked in and freshened up, I went ahead to meet the first of many couchsurfers today to explore the city together. M. lives in Montreal and knows the city pretty well, which is really a relief, it makes things so much easier plus you get to see the locals living.

He and I enjoyed a walk around the Old Montreal first with a visit to the Old Port. If it wouldn’t have been for the rain it would have been perfect, but again me being me I enjoyed it regardless but I had to change my shoes in between, ballerinas are not made for such weather.

Montreal Clock Tower

For a late lunch we made a quick stop at Schwartz, a very famous Smoked Meat place. Having now tasted the meat, I have to admit it wasn’t the best I have ever tasted; it was good no doubt about that. Maybe to properly judge I would need to try another one as well, just to make it fair. We continued to walk into the direction of Chinatown and had a quick coffee on the way.

http://www.basiliquenotredame.ca/

In the evening we decided to meet up with some more Couchsurfers to visit the Comedy Hostel, I dragged my roommates along and it turned out to be a fun and great evening, hopefully for all of us. One of us even went up on stage and enjoyed her version of Couchsurfing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uzfiNsdSWM

After the fun it was time for some rest and I headed back to my hostel.

For the next day M. continued to show me around as well as going to some more famous food places.

First we stopped at the L’Avenue the Plateau, a famous brunch place. The food was good and the decoration is making up for what the service lacks, brilliance.

The quick breakfast was followed with another bite to eat at La Banquise, where locals line up for Poutine, it is on rue Rachel next to the La Fontaine Parc (closest metro is Mount Royal), open 24h. Seeing it and tasting this are two different things. Poutine is indeed yummy and I will try to make some at home next time, maybe in a more healthy version (e.g. Sweet Potato, Avocado and then some, I will see what I come up with). We have tried the La Elvis from the menu giving you the choice of 28 different versions.

All the food needed to be walked off now and we headed to Mont Royal. I have been told that the sunset is suppose to be really beautiful and the night view is amazing, but because of the time I wouldn’t manage to get up there again a second time to see that. Many Montrealers converge to the Mount Royal off Parc Avenue, to bask in the sun and catch up with friends. It is a very eclectic mix of people and definitely worth passing by if the weather is nice. There are large drum circles that crop up is several locations, with people jamming with tam tams, drums, bells, and anything that makes noise.

From there we continued to Ile St Helene to visit the Parc Jean Drapeau is directly next to the racing track. The Grand Prix du Canada is held every June on Parc Jean-Drapeau's Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve. This motor-racing event is the only Canadian stop on the Formula One World Championship schedule and it is “the” place to be for fans who love car racing or who enjoy thrills.

The first stop was the Biosphere Environmental Museum (next to the racing track…..). 

An architectural masterpiece and symbol of Expo 67, the Biosphere is a unique and spectacular structure, located at Parc Jean-Drapeau in Montréal.

Then we went to the L'Homme Sculpture. On Sundays, there are a number of activities that locals like doing. One is the Piknic Electronik, which is on the Ile St Helene (accessible by metro). It is essentially a place where there is live electronic music in the sun every Sunday. Most people will bring food and hang out in the sun. 

Created in 1967 by Alexander Calder, one of the 20th century's greatest sculptors, this abstract sculpture was a gift from the International Nickel Company. It reflects the theme of Expo 67, “Man and His World”. Sculpture erected on the Belvedere on the north shore of Île Sainte-Hélène, facing the river.

Besides the L’Homme more art can be found here:

http://www.parcjeandrapeau.com/en/attractions/public-art/

In the late afternoon I received an email informing me that my departure time and place had changed. So instead of going out as planned I stayed in, enjoyed a couple of videos and went to bed to make sure I can get up at 05:30 am for the tour.

The next day – The lesson to be learned

Getting up and ready I was at the place on time and even got a coffee on the way. There was a bus standing, but having only booked a one day tour I didn’t think it would be the one.

Ok, before I tell the story on how my second day in Montreal begun, keep in mind that only I am to blame for the decision I have made. Of course this is just my opinion of a situation that under different circumstances would have been a great experience. And be aware, story might be a bit long.

In my case I booked a tour for today when I had done some research for Montreal. I had checked the tours available from Montreal and saw one that appeared to be pretty cheap.

The website is called taketours.com and it seems it is working as a travel aggregator (not agency) and the tour operators are different companies. Well for this website I clearly didn’t do enough research, otherwise I would have read this in advance: http://www.yelp.ca/biz/taketours-cambridge.

Again, I am not blaming them, but only me for making such a poor choice. Additional to that I have done a pretty big bummer in my plan. When I booked it was not clear to me where exactly the 1000 Islands would be neither the Upper Canada Village. So when I told my friend P. this while being in Toronto, he made me aware of the fact that it was pretty much just around the corner from Toronto. So I went all the way back to Kingston even though I just came from Ottawa to Montreal, well here you have excellent planning skills in action ;)

I was thinking for a quick second to cancel the tour and instead do something around the city. Well, I came to the decision that I just go ahead with it, what harm could it do to see these places as well.

So here I was, standing in the rain, still a bit tired from the lack of sleep and waiting for a bus to arrive. It turned out that the big bus was indeed the bus I was suppose to take. As people kept saying Toronto I asked for some details on how this here is going ahead. The lady called Ally explained that at the 1000 Island we would switch onto a smaller Van. Before that we took all together a boat tour. Now here is the first thing that should have rung all alarm bells, the other tour lady was asking if I had paid for the boat trip before handing me one of those tickets. Unaware of any additional costs I was under the impression I paid for this already and said therefore yes.

Now here is the thing with the tour, the same as in the guys story from the link, I wasn’t aware of the extra costs for this tour. But in all fairness, they do have it on their website at the bottom of the booking list.

After the boat ride we got picked up by a gentleman that seemed to have just arrived in Canada based on behaviour, accent and lack of English. Usually this is not a problem at all and I get around somehow. In this particular case however it proved to be difficult to make my point of view clear as he didn’t understand a word I was saying and my French was by far not good enough, even though he himself seemed to have some difficulties with that too. Basically what he asked for was 60$. Me sitting there with a surprised impression, asking: What for? He listed the boat ride (18$), Upper Canada village (20$), Lunch (16$) and Service Charge/Tip (6$). This would have cost me a total of 100$ for the whole trip. With grinding teeth’s I paid in the end 24$, since I had taken already the boat ride and tips is mandatory (Tipping here is another story I will write about in my conclusions at the end of the trip).

For a moment I had been happy to have at least the car space now and the option to ask the Driver to stop at different places if I had seen some interesting places on the way. It turned out this was the second time he done the tour and he had done as well some risky movements on the highway with being a very particular driver. He slowed down, nearly stopped in order for us to take a picture of things we didn’t even want to see; he just thought they were nice. Also not finding the correct way to the attraction made things a bit difficult, we guided him then in the end based on the road signs. Let alone from pulling petrol, a never seen technique made him unable to fill his tank, only a superhero in form of a station assistant managed to fill the car up. As we had been locked into the car (!) I was not able to come to his rescue.

I understand that things might be new to him and he needs to learn, but it did made his company look unprofessional. The company is Fantasi, even though on my Ticket it said MapleTours. They are a Chinese based company and they certainly know the drill, but it still needs to have some work done. If this tour is not possible and too much hassle, just take it off the menu. That would be better than angry/disappointed customers.

When we got to the Upper Canada Village I walked around the lake of Parks of the St. Lawrence and tried to make the best of the situation and just enjoying my time with the nature.

We made it home fairly early since nothing else was to be seen on that tour. So if you are asking my opinion, don’t book tours in Canada, they seem to be like a pretty bad rip off. I have one more tour booked, directly with the operator this time, for the Maritime Part of Canada, let’s see how that goes. Like they said, 3 times is a lucky charm. Certainly a lesson learned today that I should do my research on tours more thoroughly in advance.

So I met up again  with M. for another late walk around the city. Since I didn’t eat anything all day I was ultra hungry and of course still a bit pi**ed off because of the tour. Trying to leave this behind we made our way to the famous Bagelshop on Fairmount and started our Bagelshop Competition. We are judging based on plain bagels, and bagels with cream cheese. I also tried a chocolate special at the Participant No. 1.

Participant No. 1

La Maison De L'Original Fairmount Bagel

Points given for:

•           Service
•           Freshness
•           Taste
•           Variety
•           Sandwiches available

Participant No. 2

La Mansion duBagel St. Viateur 

Points given for:

•           Service
•           Freshness – right from the oven (it was a bit too hot to eat right away)
•           Fluffiness
•           I got a free Bagel extra
•           Simple Menu of three different Bagels, sticking to the roots, no sandwiches
•           Price

The winner is La Maison De L'Original Fairmount Bagel, it was just tastier!

On the way back we came across the freak lunchbox, a candy shop! Happy me was nearly dancing on the way home; surely just a sugar rush.

This is a lonely door in Montreal, a bar with brilliant decoration is hidden in there. Go and find it.

Schwartz, this time with a queue

Museum

Freak Lunchbox on St. Laurent

Thought I share other things that a friend of a friend recommended, but I wasn’t able to visit. Thank you J.!

Nice View:

Suite 701 (the rooftop terrace opens at 4pm)

Bistros:

L’expresse 

Deville Diner bar 

Bitoque 

Overall the trip to Montreal was really nice. The rain certainly left a ugly mark on the overall experience, but I would highly recommend visiting this city with the unbelievable amount of restaurants and food options. Thank you everyone for a great time and hopefully see you soon around in the world. Next off to Quebec City.

Happy Travels :)