Montréal
We’d only been to Canada once before when we went to visit Niagara falls 3 years ago, so we decided over the long presidents day weekend this year to drive up to Montreal with our pup Marty. We rented a dog-friendly airbnb that was really cute and ended up fitting in an insane amount of activities into 3 days!
First off, the drive from NYC to Canada is gorgeous, the more north you go you get to the Adirondacks the nature is jaw dropping beautiful. After our 6 hour early morning start, we got settled and then went straight to Art Mur, a little gallery a few minutes away from our apartment. Art Mur had really great contemporary art and 3 floors of it, after that we moved on to the Mile End neighborhood which had tons of cool shops and we had our first Canadian smoked meat experience at Lesters. Their smoked meat sandwich with mustard was delish.
Come evening we went to the Centre Bell for a Canadiens hockey game! Their stadium and food and drinks were next level. They even had aperol spritz which I don’t usually find at sporting events with Max. It was a close game and the crowd was electric. We ended the night stopping by Broue Pub Brouhaha right next to our Airbnb which is famous for its beer and poutine - the poutine did not disappoint. It is the perfect drunk food.
The next day, Sunday, we made our way to downtown Montreal, a quick 5 minute drive from where we were staying. We wanted to see the main sights there which included the Notre Damn look alike in the center. We grabbed delicious coffee and pastries inside an old beautiful bank at this cafe call Crew Collective. Afterwards we walked around the old town with cobble stone streets and ended up at the enormous ferris wheel with ice skating rink beneath. The views were beautiful and outdoor fireplaces smelled amazing. From there we went to SSENSE - the most interesting store/cafe concept I’ve seen, their cement everything cafe on the top floor was insane. We then went to MAC the contemporary art museum of Montreal which was smaller than expected but still saw some really great pieces.
One of our favorite food spots was Les Enfants Terribles where we went for a late lunch that day, not only was the food on point but it’s the highest restaurant in Montreal, the views were not even comparable to that of the ferris wheel.
That night we went to a more low key wine bar called barvinvinvin, so many choices of wine and small plates and everything was delicious. The vibe in there was great with young people all speaking french.
After all of that came our last day, we spent the morning grabbing a coffee and heading to Bota Bota, the coolest spa I’ve ever been to. It’s located on a boat right off downtown Montreal and has endless hot tubs, cold plunges, and saunas. This helped us prep for our long drive back to NYC.
