Montreal views

As I noted a couple of days ago, visiting a new place can be exciting and fun.  It can also sometimes be, dare I say it, rather hard work.  Unfortunately, such was the case for us in Montreal.

Driving around the city was nightmarish, especially as our smartphone was unusable because it was running up roaming charges at such an obscene rate. And the Google directions to the Longueuil Metro that we picked up on the hotel wifi led us not to a large rail terminal but to a local branch of a Canadian supermarket chain.

The "old town" part of the city was attractively French, but not especially kid friendly on a hot, tourist-packed day.  However we were briefly diverted by a street performer, enjoyed a very fruity smoothie and a gelato, took in the views across the fast flowing Saint-Lawrence, and saw lots of brides.  The Girl, who is not a fan of cities, declared this one better than many. Praise indeed - but she still didn't want to hang around it for too long.

We also had a bit of an explore of Mont Royal, a Hampstead Heath-like park in the middle of the city.  This is where the trip nearly went horribly wrong, late in the day, after we followed a path for some distance in search of the Croix du Mont Royal - a metal cross which honestly wasn't that inspiring and didn't provide any views... The kids were quite disgruntled, until, by a happy chance as we crossed a bridge, the Girl spotted three raccoons sitting in a row on the path beneath us.  We stared at them and they stared at us, then they disappeared themselves into some undergrowth.  Everyone's mood lightened - hooray for raccoons.

It was cool to spend a little time in a Francophone environment, especially since both kids have been studying French at school.  Although it was not our most successful city break, I'm glad we went.