My first Sunday weekend in Canada was spent in Montreal, Quebec. I actually stayed for first leg of the holiday somewhere in Ontario province, in the village of Russell, approximately 20 minutes from downtown Ottawa. I am visiting my niece who is studying at the University of Ottawa for a semester. Although she has been around the outskirts of Montreal city, such as the Pierre Elliott Trudeau International Airport (moi as well), she hasn’t really been to the big city itself.
So we decided to spend our Sunday together in Montreal. It’s going to be a first for both of us =)
The City of Montreal is big so we made the easiest decision to first check out the old part—the Old Montreal. We initially planned on going to Mount Royal Parc first, but then thought that we will go there in the evening instead, since we will watch the lunar eclipse and supermoon anyway.
We had a bit of luck getting into the city as the GPS led us straight to the old area and to the old port. Before the trip I did some nosing around Google Maps and learned that Old Montreal is a small area and is located near the old port. As we drove along the main street, we came upon an outdoor parking in the old port area. Ah nice! An outdoor parking right in the heart of Old Montreal, on the Quai de l’Horloge. C’est juste parfait =)
The Quai de l’Horloge is an attraction in itself we realised, so after having parked the car we lingered around a bit here for a while, checking out the boardwalk and the sights around—the harbour, the buildings towering above the yachts, the clock tower, the views and we discovered as well a beach.
AnK (my niece) and I were quite surprised that the beach was empty. Huh. What is going on? It is 24C?!!! I mean we could count the number of people lounging on the beach with our fingers. Where the heck is everybody? No, we were not surprised really, we were perplexed! Haha. We had to laugh about it. Perhaps later in the afternoon people would come trickling in?
That Sunday (the 27th of September) was perhaps the “last summer†in Montreal. It was an exceptional early autumn weekend day of 24C+, really perfect for beach weather time. The beach by the way is called Plage de l’Horloge (site in French only).
We were joking around that if this was in the Netherlands, the parking and the beach would have been filled up by 7 in the morning!
Travel Period: September 2015
Destination: Montreal (Quebec), Canada
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Happy Travels! Enjoy Life =)