March 2026: Let the Good Times Roll in...Montreal?: Day 4, The End

Day 4: Monday March 30, 2026

This morning we slept in slightly…you know, until about 6. Eventually we got up and got ready and walked a couple of blocks to breakfast at Le Fabrique de Bagel, which was in a small mall of sorts.

I got a cranberry chocolate bagel with cream cheese and Nick got a breakfast sandwich on a bagel. We both quickly decided that a cranberry chocolate bagel is brilliant and the cream cheese here was amazing, but Montreal bagels are not for us. They’re almost…sticky.

 
We finished eating as much of breakfast as we were going to and then checked out a piece of the Berlin Wall that was in this mall, before heading back to the hotel.

Back at the hotel we packed up the room, and brought everything down to the car so that we could get the car out of the garage before handing in our keys. Once I had pulled the car around front, I went in to check out and then we hit the road. I think we checked out a little after 9.

It was an uneventful and dare I say it, easy, drive to the border. The line to enter the States moved slowly, but it really wasn’t that long, and pretty soon we were playing 20 questions with US Customs. We passed the test here too, and were welcomed home.

From the border it was probably about an hour to our next destination: Cold Hollow Cider Mill. This is a favorite stop of ours in the Stowe area. We grabbed a delicious lunch of sandwiches (on homemade bread) in their cafe, and then explored the cider mill store for a bit. Because it was a week day (we’re usually here on weekends) we got to see them pressing apples to make cider, so that was cool. We picked up some of their cider donuts (in maple sugar…winning!), and I tried to get a frozen hot chocolate with maple creamee, but their frozen hot chocolate machine was frozen, so I ended up with an apple cider slush with maple creamee. This was very good.

Having gotten our fill of cider, we got back in the car for the roughly 2 hour drive the rest of the way home. It was uneventful and we were home in plenty of time to collect the dogs from the local pet resort and get ready for the rest of the week.


Final thoughts:

Well, it wasn’t New Orleans, but we had fun.

If you go to Montreal and don’t eat well, you did something wrong.

We still don’t like cities.

I’m not necessarily in a hurry to go back to Montreal, because I felt like we got the gist of it, but I would like to go back sometime during terrace season. I love outdoor dining and it seems like they have an amazing outdoor dining scene in Old Montreal.

I would recommend the hotel we stayed at without hesitation.

The Biodome alone was worth the trip.

If you’re ever in the Stowe, VT area, go to Cold Hollow Cider.

March 2026: Let the Good Times Roll in...Montreal?: Day 3

Day 3: Sunday March 29, 2026

We were awake relatively early this morning. We were both excited for today. So we got ready and headed for breakfast at a Canadian institution…Tim Hortons. Breakfast sandwich for Nick, maple boston (i.e., a custard filled, maple frosted) donut for me.

 
Food eaten, we headed outside and approximately 1 door down to the Place des Artes Metro station. We found the ticketing machines easily enough, and thankfully the machines had an English option so buying our tickets was easy. I had screenshot the directions, so once we had our tickets in hand, we pretty easily found the right platform. A train came along within 5 minutes, and we were off to today’s destination.

I was actually really impressed with how clean the Metro train was. The T trains in Boston are absolutely NOT that clean. It was an uneventful 8 or 9 stop trip to the Pie-IX station, where we figured out that Sortie means exit and found our way back to ground level.

Once outside, we walked around the Parq Olympique a bit, before we headed for the Montreal Biodome, which was why we were really here (although as someone who really likes Olympic Gymnastics, being about to walk around the Olympic Park from the Olympics where Nadia Comaneci scored a 10 was a big deal).

 
We found our way to the entrance of the Biodome, and once our tickets had been scanned, started exploring. The Biodome is basically 4 different ecosystems, and it’s really well done. We both were very impressed and felt that the Biodome alone made the 4 hour trip to Montreal worth it.

 
When we were done at the Biodome, we decided since it had been so worthwhile that we should go to the Insectarium. This was about a 10 minute walk, but it was starting to warm up, so it wasn’t too bad.

At the insectarium, we bought tickets and headed inside. This place was basically a butterfly garden with a couple extra exhibits and some additional insects thrown in. It was well done, but I definitely enjoyed the Biodome more.

 
When we were done at the Insectarium, we worked our way to lunch, via some more picture taking around the Biodome and Parq Olympique.

 
Lunch was a few blocks from the Biodome: Poutine Centrale. When we walked in, we were greeted with a full conversation in French. Thankfully, they quickly saw our confused faces, asked if we were English speakers, and switched to perfect English. We all joked around and then Nick ordered basically poutine with bacon and I ordered a classic poutine with extra cheese. Service was quick, and the poutine was amazing. Not a place I’d go to after dark, but it was worth the off the path trek for lunch. And, I could have gotten away with regular classic poutine. There was a TON of cheese on mine.

Lunch eaten, we headed back to the PIE-IX metro station, where we waited just a few minutes for a train back to Place-Des-Artes. This train was standing room only, but it was another uneventful and surprisingly clean ride back to downtown.

When we exited the Metro, we discovered that there was some sort of big event going on AT the Place-Des-Artes, so leaving was chaotic, but we made it out, and then promptly found the nearby liquor store. Always look for interesting stuff. This was a small liquor store, so after surveying the options, we bought a maple cream liquor and a strawberry maple cream liquor. Since bags are not an automatic thing in Canada apparently, we also bought a reusable bag, which turned out to be the world’s best reusable bag…separate sections for up to 4 bottles of liquor. That bag will be a useful addition to our bag collection!

The liquor store was kind of in a mall so we explored a bit more, including going to an IGA. Nick seemed surprised that I knew that IGA was a grocery store, but he forgets that my grandparents lived close enough to Canada that we could watch the Canadian news channels (don’t ever watch their weather forecasts in February; those temperatures in Celsius are terrifying!), so of course I’ve been in an IGA!. This IGA was a small one (although bigger than it looked) and we were specifically looking for interesting items. Nick got some different flavor of Coke that he hadn’t found in the States yet, and I got some Easter Cadbury Dairy chocolate and some maple cream golden Oreos (yeah, they were amazing). We then worked really hard and eventually made it out of the mall. Seriously…more obvious exit/sortie signs would be great!

It was a couple blocks back to the hotel, where we settled in for the great dinner debate. I’d made reservations at a Montreal BBQ place that is apparently an award winner for their brisket, but as we’d walked back in the hotel room, I’d gotten a text that they would be unable to open for the night due to a family emergency, so our reservation was canceled. So, it was back to figuring out dinner.

We got dinner figured out and a reservation booked, then chilled for a bit before heading out into Old Montreal. The first stop was a souvenir shop. I needed to get a suitcase sticker and ornament for me and a shot glass for a friend. That goal was quickly accomplished, with some poor attempts at French, and some fumbling with the plastic that is Canadian currency. Then it was off to dinner, very nearby at the Wolf and Workman Pub.

Dinner was excellent. Nick got the steak frites and a Canadian stout. I had an apple cider spritz cocktail and the chicken pot pie. Service was attentive, food and beverages were excellent. Prices were city prices, but with the exchange rate working in our favor, dinner ended up costing about the same as it would have in rural NH. Even without the significant exchange rate benefit, Nick and I both would not hesitate to eat here again.

 
After dinner, we made the walk back uphill over the cobblestones to the hotel, where we pretty much crashed for the night.

March 2026: Let the Good Times Roll in...Montreal?: Day 2

Day 2: Saturday March 28, 2026

After a night of ok enough sleep, we got up and started getting ready for the day. Once we were ready for breakfast, we headed out to the car, which needed defrost time, because the temperature had dropped dramatically overnight. When we could see out the windshield, we headed kind of across the street to Burlington Bagel for breakfast. Nick had a breakfast sandwich on an asiago pepper bagel and a dirty chai (that he tricked me into trying even though I HATE espresso), and I had…a bagel with cream cheese. Burlington Bagel has some of the best bagels in New England, so it was a great breakfast and we loved that there was a location right by our hotel. Well worth skipping the free hotel breakfast for!

After breakfast we headed back to the hotel, where we finished packing and checked out around 9. We made a quick stop for fuel, because even though Vermont gas is more expensive than NH gas, it’s a LOT cheaper than Canadian gas, and by filling up here, we would make it back into the States before we needed to fill up again, and then we hopped back onto I-89.

Less than an hour later, and straight up I-89, we were at Canadian customs, answering rapid fire questions as to why we were going to Canada. But, we passed the quiz, and were on our way again, driving through farm land, and expressing embarrassment that this was our first trip to Montreal, when Canada really was so close. About an hour (and really just a few roads) later, we were pulling up to our hotel, the Courtyard Montreal Downtown. Yeah, we live 4 hours from Montreal and have never been.

I left Nick in the car and headed inside to ask about parking and luggage storage since we were very early for check-in (it wasn’t even 11:00 am yet). I was greeted enthusiastically and told that I was not too early and they would find us a ready room. And they sure did. Keys in hand, and directions on how to enter their parking garage, I headed back out to the car to tell Nick the good news that we were already checked in. We both were pleasantly surprised.

We parked in the underground garage easily, and then found our way to our room, 712. We were immediately impressed with the room. It was immaculate and absolutely huge for a city (or, honestly, any standard hotel room).

 

We settled in a bit, put on all the warm gear, and then headed out to explore Old Montreal. Our hotel was a couple blocks from the “start” of Old Montreal, so while we took a more circuitous route initially than we later discovered was necessary, it wasn’t a bad walk. We spent some time just walking around, taking in all the sites. We certainly have old cities in the States (Boston…), but this really was unique compared to what we’re used to.

 
Eventually we decided it was time for lunch, and by some miracle, since offline Google Maps was not working as I had hoped, and public wifi is not nearly as prevalent in Old Montreal as it is in Ireland, we found the Pinnacle Wagyu Deli, which is exactly where I’d been hoping we would be able to have lunch. This is a small order at the counter place, known for their steak and their smash burgers. I got the smashburger and Nick got the steak frites. Both were amazing. You could cut the steak with the disposable wooden fork and knife we were given. Seriously, this was a great lunch stop. Prices were fair too, especially once the Canadian dollar was converted to American!

After lunch, we worked our way to the Montreal Museum of Archaeology and History. This museum had a lot to offer in terms of history but had the most confusing layout I’ve experienced in any museum. So…mixed feelings about this museum, but it did provide us the opportunity to warm up, some wifi, and because of where in Old Montreal it is, allowed us to figure out the most direct route between the hotel and Old Montreal.

Museum explored we headed back to the hotel room to warm up, take a break from miles of walking uphill on cobblestones, and figure out where we wanted to have dinner.

In the end, we chose the nearby food hall for dinner, so when we were ready, we walked a few blocks over to Le Central. Here we both decided on pasta dishes. Nick had carbonara. I had bolognese. Nick also found us some cocktails while I watched them cook our pasta from our seats. I think my cocktail was a strawberry shortcake cocktail and his was something tropical with beer in it. Both cocktails were very good, and both pasta dishes were some of the best we’ve had. Le Central was very loud and chaotic, but I’d happily go back.

Dinner eaten, we walked back to the hotel, where we took in the nighttime view and crashed early.