Montreal – The Sites

Montreal has so much to offer for an extended stay. It’s a great walking city which is right up our alley. Everywhere that was too far to walk we opted for Uber which was much easier than renting a car. I’d recommend doing this to any city you visit. We’ve learned through experience that paying for parking can often be a hidden travel expense. In addition to not having to worry about parking the locals know their drivers as well as their streets better, plus they’ve acquired the knowledge of cut throughs. Brandon was much more at ease that he didn’t have to drive and I was much more at ease being picked up on our doorstop and being dropped off right where we intended to be.

The Olympic Stadium

Montreal hosted the summer olympics in 1976. Commonly remembered as the year Nadia Comaneci of Romania scored a perfect 10 in her gymnastics routine. We toured the museum, stadium, went up to the observatory for an amazing view and finally we saw the swimming and diving pools which is now open to the public. You guys I was geeking out. I’m a huge fan of the olympics. Brandon turned to me while our guide trailed off in french and he whispered, “I know this isn’t really my thing, but I’m pretty excited for you.”

Biodome

The biodome is full of different ecosystems where you can see dozens of animals. We saw a capybara roughly the size of our 80lb black lab! He took a mud bath, then went for a swim much to all the children’s excitement. We also came across raccoons, bats, a crocodile, so many birds, monkeys, fish and penguins.

Insectarium

How incredible is the detail on all of those beetles? There’s so much to see here. Any bug lover would love this stop. It’s not me by any means but I still found all the critters fascinating. The dead ones. I just moseyed past the live wolf spider. No thanks.

Botanical Gardens

Unfortunately after the olympic stadium, biodome and insectarium we had little reserve to continue walking around. Each of these sites were right near eachother and connected by a great walking path. The Botanical Gardens were way bigger than we realized. We would have spent so much more time there if we had the energy.

Is there any place more romantic than a rose garden?

Underground City

There’s a series of tunnels and malls under the city that is most commonly accessed at Eaton Center. We didn’t particularly go to shop so much as we did to just check it out. Most stores were similar to the ones you’d find in the states. After a half hour of browsing we were so overwhelmed and worried we’d end up lost that we decided to hop out onto the street to check out a nearby bookstore instead.

Oh and I promise Brandon was actually on this trip too. He was just taking all these amazing photos ♥