Montreal – half Canada (hella nice) and half France (hella chic). Amazing old town buildings, a fantastically clean Metro, and lots of great little restaurants. (I didn’t get to try to many of said restaurants with 4 kids on the visit but it’s all good.)
Highlights:
- Jean Talon Market – our Airbnb was really close to this market (and the Metro stop of same name). Very cool daily market with tons of produce, stands with processed foods like salami, pickles, etc.
- Airbnb – we stayed in a second floor apartment in a three story building. It had an enormous patio, about 625 square feet, and 3 bedrooms. I love Airbnb when we travel as hotels are pretty darn difficult for a big family – although we miss having swimming pools, breakfast, etc.
- Metro – so clean, so fast, and great pricing. A 3 day pass was about $21 and up to 4 children were free with an adult. I really like family / kid friendly policies like this. Most of the Metro stops did not have elevators and often had many steps which was a challenge for strollers and toddlers and I’m sure would make a challenge for handicapped people. The Metro does not go to the airport, but they have a frequent bus connection that worked well for us, about half the distance on the freeway was in a bus / taxi only lane which is a great idea for other places like San Diego to utilize.
- Lachine Canal / bicycles – Bicycles are awesome and we got to rent for a day and ride about 20 miles on the Lachine Canal. Beautiful weather and water views of the canal on the way out, and the St Lawrence River on the way back. Massive amounts of park space along the way with playgrounds, trees and grass, sculptures, and more. Highly recommended. (We missed the Verdun public beach which would have been great and had tons of people enjoying the water.)
- Summertime – we don’t get a lot of weather changes in San Diego but being in an area with lots of water, lots of trees, and long summer days was great. Long days were also amazing in Minnesota, for a farm visit after Montreal.
