Hello WordPressers!
I am trying my best to get all these days out on the blog before I take another trip! haha Here we are on day 3 in Canada, our first full day in Montreal. It was Canada Day, which is a major holiday for Canadians, much like our Independence Day in the States.
We started off our day by hitting a late breakfast at Marche Artisan, which is nearby at the Fairmont Hotel. This is a place we frequented once on our last trip, immensely enjoyed it, so we had to go back to check it out again. This is an upscale market selling foods like fresh seafood, cheeses, chocolates, sushi, crepes, jams, pastries and bread. They also sell unique home good products. Then within the center of the large space is an enclosed space where there are classes. This place is beautiful and squeaky clean. And the staff are helpful and welcoming.
The one thing we LOVE here are their crepes. They have a variety of flavors, seriously, of many types. My husband and daughters love the sweet crepes, like the ones they ordered this morning, the salted caramel banana and the Nutella strawberry, and I love the savory crepes, which I got a different one each morning… yes we hit this market every morning! We couldn’t go anywhere else without our daughters asking to go there anyways. This particular day I ordered a savory crepe with cheese, mushrooms, asparagus, and arugula.
The coffee is strong and delicious, too!
Right after breakfast we took a quick walk through the market, then made our way through to the underground towards our hotel. Montreal is well-known for their underground city, it’s a fully-functional subway and train system with a thriving network of restaurants, cafes and stores. This comes in handy during their frigid Winters. (and heat waves)
We then spent all of our late morning until early evening at our hotel’s pool. The pool is on a roof over looking the city skyscrapers, which is super cool. We noticed a lot of changes to the pool area. They created a new platform space for the hot tub and built a new large bar on the side of the roof that is in the shade longer. The staff must be way happier now! The pool is super fun because it is not only heated (so I will actually get in it and stay in it for a while) but it goes inside the hotel so you can enter and exit it indoors, which again, comes handy in Winter.
My husband had made dinner reservations at the Riva Restaurant, in Old Port, Montreal, for 5PM before we left. He chose this place as a surprise dinner for us, yes, he likes to surprise us with places on our vacations. He chose this place for two reasons… because it was on the water facing where fireworks would be going off this night, but it was also described to him as a pizzeria food truck style prosecco bar. YES, a pizzeria food truck style prosecco bar restaurant.
THIS PLACE WAS SO INTERESTING!!
Aesthetically it was so pretty. It is all set up on an outdoor deck overlooking the river. There was a lounge area as you walked in to the right, then the rest were flanked tables. Most tables of large parties were shareable tables. Beyond the lounge space was a converted truck turned bar, with some seating. There was a DJ set up by the kitchen doors where the staff would shuffle in and out of. The DJ was actually pretty great. Then it was all decked out with vintage style string lighting and military clothe to shield the sun (which didn’t do a great job, which is unfortunate for those too pale to sit in the sun for long periods of time.)
Ok, so it was a pizzeria, but not in the traditional sense. The pizza was sold by the slice, actually, each slice listed comes in two slices, but they don’t tell you that. They have a lot of on menu pizza types to choose from, but then there was a huge list off menu to choose from, too! We ordered a slew of margherita pizza slices, and some mushroom with onion confit. SO DARN GOOD! The pizza was cut into squares. Each slice was crisp, the sauce was savory and the cheeses were so fresh and gooey. Such a great experience.
The drinks menu was so unique, and I am obsessed with prosecco; and I mean obsessed. Seeing a pitcher of prosecco sangria was super exciting for me. Which of course, we got. WOW! Delicious. It was so beautifully refreshing, unique, and something I am going to try making this weekend.
We ended up staying at the restaurant for about 2.5 hours or so. We left to walk through the commons, where tons of people were walking through. We took a quick rest on the grass along the river to enjoy the sights and people watch. There were so many people out! Then we saw a plane with a banner zip by that said “Will you marry me, MaryLou?”. The whole lawn erupted in claps and “ooo’s” & “ahh’s”, as we all looked around for whomever was proposing to their girlfriend. No one found them, so we hope she said YES!! It was so sweet!
Then we decided to grab an ice cream at Chez Catherine on our way to the fireworks, which is a place we had visited before and our girls wanted to go back to have ice cream. Notice a trend? The girls have great food memory! While having ice cream, the girls shared that they had a desire to head back to our hotel for some downtime with us, and maybe sleep. It seemed like a great idea since my husband had to be at a meeting early, and I was happy on prosecco, so I was happy to agree to anything anyways! haha
Overall, Montreal is batting a thousand this trip and it was such a great day!
Valeria Out Loud 