Mile End & Mount Royal Park in Montreal

This morning we left at 9.30am for our explorations of the city. Straight to our usual metro station, Place Victoria, and then off to Laurier Station to explore Mile End, the Jewish precinct.

We walked through the Mile End medical strip first, examining the building styles all the way along. We proceeded up to the correct crossing, by a lovely park in front of a grand Jewish hospital with an astonishing frontage, but then we took a wrong turn through a design precinct and walked for several large blocks before realising we were too far down. So, eventually we turned and took a residential back street for some variation of sight-seeing and back-tracked all the way back up, and then went sideways and up further, and further. We became quite lost and walked and walked, but saw lots of fascinating residential areas in the process. Eventually we asked two local women for directions, and they sent us another three long blocks North, where we finally found Rue Fairmont and then Rue Viator, which were the two streets we were seeking in the first place.

Just when we were all about to collapse, we spotted one of the two famed bagel stores, we'd been seeking. To our considerable disappointment we found there was nowhere to sit. It was simply a bagel bakery, albeit a seriously old-fashioned one where they hand-roll every single bagel. Along the right side there was a row of fridges stocking cool drinks, phillie cheese, salmon and various condiments to accompany your take-away bagels. We bought seven bagels: three sesame and three raisin and cinnamon and one poppyseed, in a big bag for 5$ or so, then went straight to the uber-hipster coffee bar Myriade on the corner. Here we were lucky to be bale to grab some window stools. L & J drank their hot chocolates and I had a small, strong sort of latte, called something I have never ever heard of, as this is a premium hipster barrista hang-out, inside a men's clothing store. Funny that we chanced upon it completely by accident.

We watched dozens and dozens of Hassidic men and boys passing by on their way to the Synagogue, wearing massive furry ring hats. Many were wearing plastic rain caps over their furry head dress, to protect them. It was quite as sight to see. It appeared to me that they may have been Russian Orthodox, but I really have no idea, except to say I do not recall seeing such extravagant dressers in Israel, or anywhere else, ever.

Replenished, we then elected to head back down along Rue Jeanne-Manse all the way to the beginning of Parc Le Mont Royal. This was gold for us, as it seemed to be the residential heartland of all the orthodox Jewish families, so it was very novel for an agnostic Australian family like us. We then stopped at an exquisite Jewish patisserie called Gascogne, and bought two lush eclairs to take away, in a perfect white box.

Approaching Mount Royal Park, past Park Jean Mance, we hiked part of the way up the hill to one of the walking trails and enjoyed walking through the city's lungs. Beautiful trees up there.  Thinking we'd come back after lunch, we took Deluth back over to Boulevard Saint Laurent in search of Shwartz' Deli. We queued for about half an hour, then went in to enjoy the most OTT masses of smoked meat on (and bulging out of) a rye sandwich each, and shared a plate of fries, coleslaw and two large dill pickles, with dark cherry cola. It was absolutely delicious, and much lighter (in terms of both the pastrami and the rye) than what we experienced at Katz Deli on the Lower East Side in NYC, seven years ago.  It was also a much smaller, more intimate and friendlier place, and the waiter and other patrons were all lots of fun.

We were intending to go back to the Parc to get a view over the city, but J was inexplicably cold, so we identified a super cool pre-loved clothing store, and spent some time in there trying things on. J bought the best denim jacket with woollen lining for 25$ - a great find.

When we came out of there we realised that we were in the middle of the Portugese cultural festival that stretched for many blocks down the Boulevard, all the way to the city. We therefore decided we didn't need to go climbing hilltops, as our bodies were aching enough as it was. So, we walked all the way back to Saint Laurent Metro, enjoying the sights along the way, and especially all the cute doggies out with their owners. Then we got the subway home.

When we came up to Earth level at our station there were even more gorgeous, tanned, scantily clad people running around than there were yesterday. Muscular guys are running about topless, wearing just shorts and runners, and taut women just wear skimpy sport tanks and it's 14 degrees celcius. We guess they're just making the most of their Summer-time, regardless of the temperature! So anyway, that was a six hour excursion all up, and utterly exhausting physically. A great day out!