Great White North: Montreal 2017
Last weekend we decided to head up to Montreal for a couple of days just to get out of town. For us, and most of New York it seems, our winter escapes tend to be directed South. During the past two years we've gone to Florida where we visited family, along with Universal Studios one year, and Epcot the next. For whatever reason this year we completely flipped the script and went deeper into the cold. From Albany, it's a straight shot to Montreal, a quick three and a half hours to the hotel in Chinatown. We dropped off our stuff and jumped back in the car to go explore the city and surrounding area.
Our first stop on Day one was Le Parc du Mont-Royal , a large public park located within the city. Although not overly cold, it still was Montreal in the winter, so we didn't explore the park to much, but we did walk up to see the Croix du mont Royal. There were plenty of trails winding their way through the woods that had a few people walking about. I'd imagine all of the trails would have been filled with joggers and hikers in warmer weather. The park also contained a few historic buildings including the Chalet du Mont-Royal which was originally built in the 30's as a depression area work project. It's now used for banquets and events, understandably so since it sports an amazing view which overlooks the city.
From there we headed back to drop our car off and make our way toward The Montreal Underground to wander about until dinner. The Underground contains a variety of stores, offices and living space some of which is tucked away just below the surface while other parts extend skyward. Like a few other places with extreme weather, you can access most of the buildings without even going outside. Dinner on our first night consisted of some excellent Vietnamese food back in Chinatown, followed by some drinks at the hotel bar.
Our second day consisted of some more wandering in the underground before heading out to street level to see a holiday village and do some more exploring. The city itself was very clean and easy to navigate, and there were plenty of cool building and old churches to check out. All of the people we met there were super friendly. I speak one or two words of French but once people realized that, they switched effortlessly to English.
The culmination of our trip was a Montreal Canadiens game where they faced off against another one of the original six, the Detroit Red Wings. The game was complete insanity from start to finish. The home team scored, and then they scored, and scored again...You normally expect a hockey score to maybe be 2-1 or 3-1, something along those lines. Not this game, the Canadiens put ten goals past the Wings while only giving up one. The crowd and atmosphere was absolutely rocking with chanting, singing, people hugging each other all over. I've been to our local AHL games when the team was in existence but they were NOTHING like this. It was definitely worth the price of admission and cost of a pretzel.