Montreal: the New Paris

For years, the Traveling Alpaca has heard that Montreal is the closer Paris, the affordable Paris or the new Paris. He isn't convinced that anything can replace the splendor that is Paris, but he sure enjoyed himself in Montreal. Alpaca was treated like royalty at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth Hotel (http://www.fairmont.com/queenelizabeth/). Despite this posh treatment and the very comfortable hotel bed and large whirlpool jacuzzi in the bath, he managed to get up and out every day.

And it's a good thing he did. Jacques Cartier Square was a bustling hub of tourist activity, and Alpaca had the pleasure of watching a number of official, licensed street performers show off their talents, including the one above. So in that sense, the city is much like Paris, in that all public performers are required to apply and audition for the privilege of performing on the street for donations. Ensures high quality performances, at least!

We visited the stunning Notre-Dame Basilica in the downtown area. We next explored the Vieux-Port area, a 133-acre promenade and park with a permanent flea market (http://ville.montreal.qc.ca/portal/page?_pageid=65,38111&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL). We sat at the end of the pier and watched as people waterskiied, left on cruises and kayaked. Also in the area is the beautiful Hotel de Ville (City Hall, 275 rue Notre Dame at rue Gosford, http://canada.archiseek.com/quebec/montreal/hoteldeville.html), dating to 1878. A variety of harbor cruises leave from here; and we debated taking an exhilarating jet-boat ride through the Lachine Rapids, or a calmer harbor cruise aboard Le Bateau-Mouche. However, we decided against it for a host of reasons, including cost. We roamed around, doing some window shopping, including at a shop with medieval garb (including swords!). We bought two shirts, one for Pookie with a little moose on it and writing “Moosely, I’m cute” and one for Ryan featuring a bear with moose antlers standing next to a sign asking patrons not to feed the bears, and holding his own sign saying “I am not a bear.”

Alpaca ate like royalty, but for a mere pittance. He enjoyed a wonderful table d'hôte dinner (basically a prix fixe menu based upon daily specials) in one of the city's best downtown restaurants, Le Bourlingueur (363 rue St-Francois-Xavier near rue St-Paul, http://www.frommers.com/destinations/montreal/D32984.html) for a mere $15 per person. This included an appetizer (a wonderful smoked salmon), a soup (delicious cauliflower soup) or salad, an entree (confit de canard and the other entree, pork chops) and dessert (refreshing lemon tart and the other, ice cream). Another day, he enjoyed lunch at Restaurant des Gouverneurs right on Jacques Cartier Square (http://english.montrealplus.ca/portal/profile.do?profileID=490142). There, we were able to take in the music of street performers and eat very good food. We again ordered the table d’hote menu, starting with salad, an entrée (a tender beef filet and a wonderfully good biche (deer) in cranberry sauce) and dessert (which is best described as a baked Alaska without the flames). Another meal of note was at the popular Swiss chain Movenpick (we went to the location at 1 place Ville Marie, http://www.moevenpick-gastronomy.com/restaurants/de/Homepage.htm?mode=flash), where you can choose each course of your meal based upon the themed station instead of being limited to a particular cuisine, as you may be at a restaurant. The chocolate crepes were particularly good. However, given the terrific deals Alpaca had gotten on the traditional restaurants, this did not seem to be as good a value, although he enjoyed the food very much and thought the price was very fair.