O Canada! Montreal
will always partially be my home because I have so much family there. I love to
visit and recently got the chance. This trip we got around the city and had the
change to got to amazing museums, eat some spectacular food, shop until we
drop, and walk through some beautiful parts of town, including Old Montreal!
Since I had a great time I thought I would put together a little guide of the
highlights of the trip for anyone interested of planning to go there themselves.
Museums
Museums are
always first on my list, and in my time in Montreal we had the opportunity to
go to two of the best!
First up was the
McCord Museum to see the “Horst: Photographer of Style” exhibition which runs
from May 14th-August 23rd, 2015 and was organized by the
Victoria & Albert Museum in London. Unfortunately there was no photography
allowed in the exhibit, otherwise I would have bored you with an endless amount
of pictures to scroll through. As I’ve mentioned before I am a huge fan of fashion
photography, and that’s exactly what this show was about. Horst was one of the
most well known German-American fashion photographers for Vogue’s Paris office throughout most of his life. Horst captured
photographs in black & white and color photographs, with particular
emphasis on the element of shadows. Some of my favorite photos included Jean
Patchett, Coco Chanel, and Gloria Vanderbilt. In addition, I was blown away at
the room full of covers of Vogue, it
was truly fascinating to walk the timeline and see how fashion and photography
changed over the years.
Next was the Montreal
Museum of Fine Arts to see the “Metamorphoses: In Rodin’s Studio” exhibition.
This was a treat because the had the room set up with so many of Rodin’s
sculptures and plaster studies that it felt as if you walked into his work
studio. Here we were allowed to take pictures! My favorite sculptures were “The
Kiss,” 1889 and “Eternal Spring,” 1884.
Eats
Who doesn’t love
a good meal?! Well I had more than my fair share in Montreal, I almost felt as
if all I did was eat the whole trip. There were my top three favorite places!
Aux Vivres
(located on 4631 Boul St-Laurent) is a vegan restaurant that I went to with my
grandmama on a granddaughter-grandmother date. Everything on the menu looked
amazing which made it hard to choose a single dish. We settled on both getting
the Buddha bowl, which consisted of a rice base and tons of broccoli, shredded
carrots, cucumber, toasted sesame seeds and pumpkin seeds and grilled tofu piled
on top. For an after dinner snack we shared a mango lassi (made with mangos,
coconut milk, apple juice, agave, lime). On top of the fact that I LOVE magno
lassis, this smoothis was certified heavenly and I’m sure any of the other
smoothies on the menu would have been equally as good. Since by this time we
both were so full our food babies were bursting we decided to take dessert
to-go and eat it later (because you can’t just go to a vegan restaurant and not
order dessert). We got the chocolate banana pie (which, bonus, was gluten free)
to take home and I’m still dreaming about this creamy pie it was so good.
Jardin Nelson
(located on 407 Place Jacques-Cartier) in Old Montreal was another one of my
favorites! Walking through Old Montreal itself feels as if you’ve traveled back
in time to some little town in Europe, but when you walk into Jardin Nelson it
feels as if you really could be sitting in a café in Europe. The openness of
the restaurant with umbrellas at each table, twinkle lights on all the tree
trunks, surrounded by flowers and live music makes you so happy, it’s a must
try for a good day out.
Lastly, Kosher
Sushi Yakimono (located on 4210 Boulevard Décarie) was another treat! Although
the restaurant it small the food is delicious. I am a big fan of sushi, even
though I only really eat the vegetarian ones. I went with my family and shared
a seaweed salad, “crab” salad and then each got our own roll (I got avocado and
cucumber—delish!)
Shopping
Since there was
a little bit of a heat wave when we were in Montreal we headed to Rockland
Centre Mall to cool off and walk around in some air-conditioning. Here there
are stores galore, just like in the U.S.
Walking
Every morning we
took a little walk around the neighborhood, my two favorite routes were through
the McGill campus and down Rue Sherbrooke. McGill Campus is beautiful to walk
through and marvel at the architecture. Since classes hadn’t started yet it was
quiet and peaceful to walk through and just observe. Then Rue Sherbrooke is a
long long street that is a good walk for window-shopping and people watching!
Have any of you been
to Montreal or any of these places? What’s your favorite thing to do when you
visit an new city?
~ Monique ~
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