Exploring Montreal

Thursday, June 3 - Today's been more of a low-key day, which is probably not a bad thing. We started off with breakfast at Eggspectation, one of the places my sister's colleague Anny recommended. Sandy got the "Eggcitement", which was supposed to be strawberry French Toast FLAMBE, but unfortunately, while tasty, it lacked the flambe, which made it a little less eggciting than hoped. I had the "Egg-chilada", which did live up to it's billing. All in all, an eggcellent breakfast.

Walking around Old Montreal was great. And we give our hotel, Le Petit Hotel, high marks. It's a small, boutique hotel that opened less than a year ago. The small staff is super friendly, and will do whatever it takes to help you out. I even accidentally left my camera cable in the lobby/cafe, and they had it for me when we got home after dinner.

We jumped on the Metro and headed up to the Mont Royal area to see the view of the city and river. When walking around up there, we bumped into a stop for the public bicycle system BIXI, where you just swipe your credit card, and you can use a bike. Short term only, though -- after 30 minutes, the price starts to jack up. Not ideal for sightseeing, but great concept, for running errands around town. We also stopped at the St-Viateur Bagel shop, also highly recommended by Anny. We had heard that Montreal bagels are different - and better - than New York bagels. And I have to say, it was really good. Less doughy, more dense. Two thumbs up.

The view of Montreal and the St. Lawrence River is great from up on Mont Royal. Unfortunately, the predicted sunshine didn't break through. However, we did discover that the park at Mont Royal was designed by Frederick Law Olmstead, who also designed Central Park. Olmstead was a busy guy, because he also designed the Arnold Arboretum and the Emerald Necklace, which we also saw in Boston.

We then headed down the Mont, and went to the Miles Davis exhibition at the Montreal Museum of Fine arts. Really great and relaxing...

We finished up the day at Restaurant L'Orignal, a new restaurant in Vieux-Montreal that was recommended by the staff at our hotel. As you can see from the moose in the logo for the restaurant, it features local cuisine. However, despite the game on the menu, it is far from backwoods or gamey. It had a great vibe, everyone was super friendly, and Sandy's bison steak was great! I had the halibut, which was also very good.

There's obviously still so much more to see in the city, but we definitely got a great taste today.