Sat at Montreal airport waiting for our delayed flight to Halifax and looking back on our few days in Montreal.

We have absolutely loved it here.  What an incredible city.  So beautiful.  So friendly.  Think we have all said at some stage over the last 4 days that we could imagine living here.

It has been the perfect ‘mini break’ between real life in the UK and Halifax and the start of our adventure in Frankie.

We’ve not done that much really.  Enjoyed the sunshine and wandered through town.  We’ve made full use of our metro tickets.  Kids love it.  Very at home hopping on and off and navigating their way through the very simple network.  Art installations at most of the stations make it a really pleasant way to travel.

Tourist bits we’ve done include visiting the old 1976 Olympic stadium  where the former velodrome has been transformed into the Biodome.  Where you stroll through four different ecosystems, starting with a lush Tropical Rainforest.  Several hours spent waiting for a mountain lynx to pop it’s head up from its slumber – Charlie is patient, I’ll give him that!

Loved the Mont Royal park (designed by the same chap who did New York’s Central Park) where we joined the Saturday morning joggers and cyclists to ‘hike’ up the  760 ft ‘hill’.  Views were beautiful down over the city – kids moaning slightly less  enjoyable.

Parks and skate parks, watching a local kids ‘soccer’ team play, picnics and cooling off in dancing fountains have been a few of the very simple pleasures of this city.

Treated ourselves to a performance of Cirque du Soliels show Kurios in a big top down at the old port.  Kids were blown away by it all.  Such an incredible spectacle.  Montreal is the home of Cirque du Soliel (they have a large campus here where some of their 4000 employees train and rehearse) and apparently all their shows debut here.

Sampled the local speciality of poutine – chips with chunks of cheese and gravy.  Surprising delicious when washed down with a cold beer!

Sights ticked off include the Notre Dame cathedral (cue comedy impressions of Quasimodo), beautiful Marche Bonsecours and the Biosphere (built for the 1967 Expo).

A long hot walk out to La Ronde amusement park where we discovered it was closed was saved by spotting a family of gophers playing near their den.

The Canadian Grand Prix takes place here in Montreal this weekend.  Yes, not quite sure how we managed to time that quite so badly.  Especially as we’ve discovered the tickets are incredibly cheap – £50 for paddock seats!!  One slightly gutted husband.  So ‘F1 Fievre’ has hit town – chequered flags everywhere and every shop and restaurant offering F1 specials.  We took the metro out to the Ile Notre Dame, the man made island where the Gilles Villeneuve circuit is and managed to wander down the track.

The people of Montreal are so friendly and helpful.  Lost track of the charming people who have gone out of their way to help and guide us over the last few days.  From the taxi driver who used to play for Glasgow Rangers to the charming waitress who patiently pointed out the route around the park we should take.  Top of the list has to to be the coach driver who offered us a free lift in his air conditioned coach back into town.  He was running a shuttle for the Casino employees and took pity on us, hot and exhausted as we were.  Can you imagine that happening in the UK?  “Sorry I’m not insured / health and safety blah blah blah!!”  Really refreshing.

All in all it has been a lovely few days.  Montreal is a city we would definitely return to. It has reminded us why we love Canada so much and made us think perhaps we won’t rush into the USA just yet – maybe we’ll spend a bit more time here in Canada.

But for now a 2 hour flight awaits to take us to Halifax where hopefully Frankie is docking after her sea voyage.  We are so looking forward to seeing her and getting settled into our home on wheels.  Plan to spend the first few days unpacking and digging the maps out to work out where to head first.