Montreal- Québec, Canada

- September 05, 2014

View of Downtown Montreal from the Marriott hotel

Although Montreal technically isn’t situated on the Travel the East road map, this was too good of a trip to go un-blogged. Three days was just enough time to take in the culture and awesome sights of this great city. We stayed right in downtown Montreal at the Marriott. The location of the hotel was ideal, with great city views from the top floors.

On our first night on the town we went to the Upstairs Jazz Bar. Montreal is known for its love of music, especially authentic Jazz. This was not your commercial jazz club, but rather a local hotspot for good food and music. If you like either of those two, we highly recommend you stop by there if you're ever in town.

Downtown Montreal takes on the attributes of most popular cities with great restaurants, shopping, and bars. There were a few historical sites as well.

We decided to venture outside the city walls. Our first stop was over a small bridge to Parc de la Cite-du-Havre. Here is one of the lesser known, hidden gems of Montreal. We would rate this spot to have some of the best panoramic views of the entire city skyline.

Parc de la Cite-du-Havre

There are tons of bike paths throughout the park, as well as hiking trails, but what really makes this park unique is the architecture throughout the park grounds. Our favorite piece of work was the Biosphere. We didn't have the opportunity to go inside the musuem, but we were still awed by the views from the outside.

Next up on our adventure was Rue Ste. Catherine (a.k.a. St. Catherine's street). We were lured in by the site of 170,000 pink ballons suspended in the air above the street. Along the east side is a pedestrian street. There is a huge variety of food and shopping spots, with tons of cool street art as well.

It wouldn't have been the full Montreal experience, without visiting Old Montreal before we left. Old Port and Old Montreal run side by side. As you enter this part of the city, you quickly feel like you walked into a time zone dating a few hundred years back. Cobblestone streets, historic buildings, foutains, and gardens, it is amazing how this part of town maintained its classic charm.

We had dinner at Jardin Nelson, a very cool and unique restaraunt in Old Montreal. The entire restaurant is an indoor garden with live music and authentic french food such as rabbit crepes- which, by the way, were awesome!