Day 44 Montreal (Day Two - Thurs)

Today we headed west to an area that was settled post WWII by the Italians, hence it is known as Little Italy. The bus dropped us off at the start of the main street filled with cafes and restaurants. This is where we came across Uncle Pete's café. Unfortunately, we had no time to taste his delights!

We then turned and headed up to what we had been told are the best open air markets in Montreal (possibly the only ones). The Jean- Talon markets are filled with fresh produce everywhere you looked, both vegies and fruit. On the other side of the street were shops with the fresh cheeses and meats.

There were florists with huge tubs of flowering miniature chrysanthemums that were very colourful. There were rows and rows of fresh chillies hanging so those not purchased fresh are allowed to dry. The size of onions in Canada tend to be the size of a large granny smith apple. They love their capsicums, as again, they had rows and rows of all size and colour for sale. You could buy fresh corn still in its husks and some vendors were cooking and selling it by the cob hot.

Before heading off we stopped for a coffee. We asked for a large and it came in a soup bowl that you needed two hands to hold. (refer photo taken by one wife) The coffee was quite good, at a reasonable price. This same establishment had a machine that roasted the coffee beans in the open area of the café.

After our lunch of coffee, we were on the road again. We walked back towards the bus stop, digressing down some streets to view the local architecture. The houses/flats in this area were not too different to those we had seen elsewhere. One thing was clear in that most people lived in apartments as they were everywhere. The cost of a house is quite expensive. Something to look forward to in Australia with all the apartments being built around the Brisbane city at present.

As we had no plans apart from a walk through the botanical gardens, we decided to walk back to our apartment. It was a 5 km walk. It was interesting to note that the buses went past at regular intervals. The good thing in Montreal is that the ticket for the bus or train can be used on the other provided you are not back tracking. So we could catch a bus and a train to go to the city for CAD$3.25 (or as they write in Quebec Province 3.25$ )

After arriving back in the apartment some time later we dropped off some surplus gear and headed off for the botanical gardens a short distance away (approx. 1.8kms). We found a lovely park (Parc Maisonneuve). It was a large park that also contained the botanical gardens and land that was subsequently used for building some of the stadiums for the 1976 Olympics. We strolled down the left side of the park, arriving at one of the entrances to the botanical gardens. It was while we were walking that we came across a white squirrel. He was quite protective of his territory chasing off a brown squirrel that dared to come close.

We were disappointed to discover there is a $19.95 (plus tax) entry to the gardens. As we had read reviews on tripadvisor that the Chinese garden was under renovation and other mixed reviews we decided we would not part with our money. We thought we may see some sight of the gardens through the fencing but this was not the case. At least it added extra km to our daily total as we walked up the opposite side to that which we had walked down.

Arriving back at the apartment we cooked up dinner and caught up on some of our blogs.