Canada - Montreal

So, we have taken advantage of the fact Tom finished school early this year and for the first time in 12 years have got a cut price holiday - yay!

As Tom wants to do French at A level, we decided that we should go to a French speaking country.  First choice was France but there were so many things we had to sort out: where to go, how to get there, what sort of accommodation etc etc that we decided to look elsewhere and ended up with a fantastic price for a trip to Quebec Province in Canada.  Fantastic.

We flew out on Wednesday 2nd July with Air Transact to Toronto and then connected to a short hopper flight to Montreal.  Flights were fine, we got fed better than we expected and the service was pleasant.  We were a little late getting into Montreal, but we got through the airport easily and got the bus to Centre-Ville.  The bus driver was obviously in a rush as he put his foot down and we flew down the road to the city centre in no time it was dark by the time we arrived, and also there was a bit of a thunder storm going on so we couldn't see much - but it was very obvious that the city is French speaking as everything (road signs / shop signs) were in French.  We got off at the stop nearest our hotel and were very pleased to find our hotel right in front of us, so we checked in, had showers and went straight to bed. 

Thursday - slept soundly to 3.30 and then had a run of very strange dreams until 6.30 when I gave up!  We lay in bed until 8am when we woke Tom and when down for breakfast - a very average hotel breakfast: no pastries, no croissants, no hint of anything French: basically scrambled eggs, bacon, eggy bread, toast and pineapple, it was advertised as only $11 per person, so really can't complain and it did fill us up.

We then headed out to do an explore: we walked to the old port - the place was a bit dead, which was surprising considering it is summer, but also we were a bit early, after we left we discovered most things opened after 10.  We then headed into the old town, however, the whole place was being dug up, we had to follow a walk way but really there was nowhere to browse and the sound of the drills etc reverberated around the buildings making it quite unpleasant- shame - bad timing I guess.   

We decided to find the Basilica Notre Dame - that was also being worked on and half of it was under scaffolding - not doing well for so far.  We paid to go inside and it was stunning and considering none of us do religion it must have been good.  Phew!

We then walked up towards Down Town and Ste Catherine Street which is one of the main shopping streets.  We found lots of lovely souvenir stores to explore - Tom got himself a holiday T-shirt.  We explored a supermarket - a combination of North American and French - I'm looking forward to when we don't have breakfast included in our hotel stays as that will mean we will be able to properly explore some supermarkets for some treats. 

 found a good bakery for a lunch treat - this is how bilingual this place is - at the same bakery - half the sandwiches were labelled in French - 'quesadilla d'agneau' alongside others in English - 'cheese and bacon', poor Tom was confused trying to order it - do you go French / English or half:half? (He went English!)

When we finished lunch, it was raining so we headed further up Ste Catherine Street to a shopping centre, but we were all getting a bit tired, so decided to get the metro back to the hotel, had a relax, a swim and sauna.

First impressions - finding Montreal a little underwhelming- think probably because there is so much construction work going on, it is hard to enjoy anything. Confused whether we should be speaking French or English - but we are initally trying French.  That's why we are here after all.