5 Days in Quebec City and Montreal
Day 1: Drive to Quebec City
After a few days in Maine, we crossed the border into Canada! It’s Keon’s first time in Canada and my first time in the eastern, French part of Canada. It takes about 4 and a half hours to drive to Quebec City and we had some time to kill before checking into our Airbnb so we stopped for—you probably guessed it—poutine. I personally am not a huge fan of my fries being topped with anything (I’m more of a dipper when it comes to french fries) so poutine has always been a mid-tier dish for me. But since it was Keon’s first time in Canada, we just had to try it out.
It started raining so we cut the foot exploration short and drove to Costco for some groceries. The days where we have to drive and subsequently pass time in between check-ins and check-outs always feel the most tiring so we stayed in and caught up on some television.
Day 2: Old Quebec City
We spent the late morning hours wandering around Old Quebec City before our 1:30pm brunch reservation at La Buche. It was already pretty warm around this time so we hugged the shade and dodged large crowds where we could. We started at rue du Petit Champlain, a popular pedestrian alley with small shops and a lot of tourists. It wasn’t really our vibe as we like more local neighborhoods, but it was a fair short street so didn’t take up much time to walk through.
We walked around some more, popping in and out of random shops and markets, before finally heading to La Buche for brunch. We’d seen this restaurant online and there was quite the craze about its brunch menu. We ordered their sugar shack plate, which reminded us of an English breakfast plus a crepe, and their french toast with caramelized apples. It was a super satisfying meal and—as a savory-breakfast person—I was very surprised that the french toast was my favorite part of the meal.
After walking around a little bit more to burn off some of the brunch, we went back to our Airbnb to rest. We ended the night checking out a country bar that ranked middle of the pack for us in our line dancing list thus far.
Quebec City, to us, seemed like a small, quaint town with a lot of history. Perhaps we just couldn’t figure out where the locals like to hang out, but there were too many tourists for our liking and we’d move on to later like Montreal a lot better.
Day 3: Drive to Montreal
Over time we’ve found that tourist attractions are very hit or miss, but recently they’ve mostly been a miss because 1) we don’t like giant groups of tourists and 2) some attractions are just not worth the fees it costs to view them. Montmorency Falls in Quebec City was one of these attractions. We decided to check it out on our way out of the city, before our drive to Montreal. The primary selling point of the falls seems to be that they stand taller than Niagara Falls, but the waterfall itself did not look extraordinary and wasn’t surrounded by anything that made us wow-ed by the view. I also just realized we don’t even have a picture of it. We’ve got to stop being suckered into those “5 Things You Must See in [Insert Place Here]” posts.
The real treat and beautiful sight to see today was the Asian supermarket we went to once we got to Montreal. For any California folks, it was like walking into a slightly less 99 Ranch, and it was glorious. We’re only in Montreal for a few days and we want to reserve some space for eating out, so we told ourselves we wouldn’t go crazy with the groceries and snacks here. We genuinely thought we didn’t until we saw how much food we had left the night before leaving Montreal.
It rained the rest of the evening so we stayed in and ate some good home-cooked food.
Day 4: Mont-Royal
It’s now been about a week since our last workout so we searched for gyms nearby when we found a decent-looking outdoor facility at a park down the street. I’ve never worked out at a public outdoor gym before and this one set the standard high. I’m not sure when it was developed but it’s either new or very well maintained because everything was in great condition.
Later in the evening we went out to explore the Mont-Royal area. Ave Mont-Royal is a really long stretch of eateries, bars, shops, and is closed off to vehicles in the summer. It reminded us of San Francisco in many ways and we had a blast walking down and seeing how lively it was on a Tuesday evening. We were also impressed by the parks. Like the park that’s near our Airbnb, these parks in the Mont-Royal neighborhood were well-kept and had a lot of people hanging out. We tried a Montreal bagel at a popular spot called St. Viateur. I can’t say I have any opinion in the battle of the bagels (sorry, New Yorkers) and I must not eat a lot of bagels in general because I can’t really distinguish between the different kinds. All bagels are good to me.
Finally, we got our second poutine fixing at Ma Poule Mouille. This time it’s a Portuguese spin on poutine, with shredded rotisserie chicken and Portuguese chorizo. It was very good but I became all poutine-d out after a few bites. Also, the “petite” order is huge.
We originally, and ambitiously, thought that poutine stop would be the first of a few on a food crawl. That did not happen because we were so full, so watching TV at the Airbnb it is!
Day 5: Little Italy, Old Montreal, Chinatown
We went back to the outdoor gym this morning and it was even more pleasant than yesterday. The area was shaded since the sun wasn’t high up yet, which provided us relief during our workout.
We explored more areas of Montreal today: Little Italy, Old Montreal, then Chinatown. We were honestly pretty tired so it was a low-energy walk around town for a few hours, stopping for food and air conditioning when we could.
Highlights from today included $5 gnocchi from Drogheria Fine (highly recommend) and drinks at Cloakroom Bar. Cloakroom Bar is a speakeasy that doesn’t have a menu. You instead talk to the bartenders about what your preferences and they’ll make you a cocktail from there. We’d been walking around a lot so I wanted a light, fruity, and refreshing drink to start. I switched liquors for my second drink and asked for a more coffee-inspired cocktail. Boy, did they deliver both times. We’d definitely come back here next time we are in Montreal.
