Roadtip to Montréal

Lisa and I decided that we desperately wanted to get away for a weekend, and Montreal is the closest city in Canada, so why not?! We persuaded Kate and Julienne to join us, and luckily Julienne was keen to drive (as I most certainty was not! American drivers are nuts!! Plus it’s the wrong side of the road..)

Early Friday morning we headed down to the car hire place. As we were about to leave a car came into the parking lot at a ridiculous speed and very almost hit us. While reversing (to let the other car in) we had a good laugh at how funny it would be if we had an accident before we even left the parking lot.. Then, bang. A different car hits us from behind. It was an employee of the car hire company, reversing out of his spot. Awkward. It was his fault though, and he apologized profusely. We had to hang around for half an hour or so to fill out insurance forms etc, but we were on the way soon after.

To get to Montréal you have to drive through Vermont- which is really beautiful and mountainous. At our first toilet/food stop we found a flyer for the Ben & Jerry’s factory, where you can do a $3 tour.. Needless to say that was chosen as our next stop. We learnt about the history of Ben & Jerry’s, saw how they make the ice cream and tried a sample of Milk & Cookies ice cream. Yum yum yum. Very worth $3!!

On the drive up to the Canadian border we drove through a little bit of snow..which Lisa called “sleet”, but snow is snow, and snow is exciting. At the border they were very friendly and essentially let us straight through.. Before we knew it, we’d found our way to Montréal! It was dark when we got there so we got a great view of the skyline at night.

We settled into our apartment, and headed off to explore the shops. We went to the Eaton Center, a big shopping center in the middle of town. I bought a little backpack which should be handy.

On Saturday we spent most of the day exploring “Old Montreal”, the historical part of town. It is soooo stunning. It’s also amazingly clean. The buildings are beautiful and there’s lots of cobblestone streets. We went to the Notre Dame. It’s not nearly as breath-taking as the one in Paris, but it’s still pretty cool. There was a choir & orchestra rehearsing inside so we got to listen to some nice music while we wandered around.

Briefly catching up with Vic

  

Then we headed back towards the shops to browse. I met up with Vic, a friend who I met in Toronto five years ago on exchange there. Didn’t even know she lived in Montréal until that morning! But it was sooo great to see her, even if we only had a brief catch up. We went to Chinatown for dinner, and had an early night. We were all sooo exhausted. We watched the Hunchback of Notre Dame on YouTube before bed, seemed fitting given we’d been there that day!

On Sunday morning we got up at a decent hour to make the most of the day. Before leaving Montréal we decided to go up Mont Royal (from which Montréal got it’s name!) to check out the views over the city. We kind of walked aimlessly, as there were very few maps, but eventually we made it to a lookout. The view was AMAZING. It’s just a stunning city!

Woodstock at sunset

After that we were on our way back down to America! Crossing the border took a little longer on the way back, but we didn’t have any major dramas. Lisa’s Mum said that if we were going to stop somewhere in Vermont we should go to Woodstock, which, it turns out, is right on the way! When we got there the sun was setting, and being a Sunday afternoon the shops were all closing. Though it was dark, I still think Woodstock is a really cute town. And there were lots of unique shops, would’ve been fun if they’d been open.

Overall, I had an amazing weekend. Montréal is a beautiful city, I’d love to go back and spend some more time there.