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Today's plan was brought to you by the letter 'P'. We bought 3 day metro tickets ($18 and valid on the airport bus - a bargain) and headed up to Mont-Royal staion, where the Plateau, a district lying below the hill of Mont Royal itself consists of residential streets, lined with colourful Victorian houses, with their distinctive awaited. We walked first down the main commercial street, Rue St Denis, to Parc St Louis, where we watched squirrels gamboling up and down trees in search of acorns, and children being taken for walks on leads (true!).
We stopped for organic ice creams at 'Cremerie Meu Meu', where we chose pumpkin/cinnamon and creme anglais/honey. They made a good pairing, and so, fortified we headed off towards Parc La Fontaine, where our lunch destination, La Banquise was located. We spent half an hour bench sitting in the park (very large, with tall shady trees, a couple of lakes, complete with ducks, and on the grass many squirrels)
We stopped for organic ice creams at 'Cremerie Meu Meu', where we chose pumpkin/cinnamon and creme anglais/honey. They made a good pairing, and so, fortified we headed off towards Parc La Fontaine, where our lunch destination, La Banquise was located. We spent half an hour bench sitting in the park (very large, with tall shady trees, a couple of lakes, complete with ducks, and on the grass many squirrels)
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The Poutine is a Montreal tradition. La Banquise has been making them for since 1968 (http://labanquise.com/).
Imagine if you will, a plate of chips. Mix in with these some mozzarella curd cheese. Over the lot, pour a thick barbecue gravy. That is the basis of the poutine - you can feel your arteries hardening just thinking of it, can't you?
These days, the 'classique' is augmented with additional trimmings. We added bacon, sausages and ham. it was delicious too. The 'regular' size was more than sufficient for two of us. And afterward, we walked back to the Metro and retired to our apartment to rest up in the cool AC.
Imagine if you will, a plate of chips. Mix in with these some mozzarella curd cheese. Over the lot, pour a thick barbecue gravy. That is the basis of the poutine - you can feel your arteries hardening just thinking of it, can't you?
These days, the 'classique' is augmented with additional trimmings. We added bacon, sausages and ham. it was delicious too. The 'regular' size was more than sufficient for two of us. And afterward, we walked back to the Metro and retired to our apartment to rest up in the cool AC.
Montreal's neighbourhood houses are characterized by their doors, most often in matching pairs.
And of course, in their exterior stairways, sometimes with a porch and chairs to watch the streetlife from above, other times, just a porch and a post box. Montreal's posties must surely be very fit fellows.
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Each night, the oldest part of the city, which once was enclosed by defensive walls is illuminated to show of the fine buildings of the area. So it was that, after take-away Vietnamese food for dinner, we walked back to Vieux Montreal, via the Plaza D'Armes, to see the lights. The illuminated buildings include the Town Hall (Hotel de Ville), the court buildings, the buildings of the malls of Rue St Paul and Place Jacques Cartier and Notre Dame de Montreal. We sat watching the crowds, then strolled down to the port area to find a bus back to Le Broadway.