It was raining on and off when we got up Monday (Lundi) and supposed to rain all day, so we decided to take the car and see how hard it was to get around Montreal. We made hotel coffee and headed off to Mile End to find Fairmount Bagel, supposedly the best bagel shop in Montreal.

The shop was tiny and there was a line of 8 or so people waiting, but it went quickly. Also, they weren’t kidding about the best bagels. Even though I couldn’t have eaten another one, I was sad I didn’t have more.

We ate our bagels in our illegally-parked car, then headed toward Marche Jean-Talon, because we figured it would be mostly covered and out of the rain. There was plenty of parking onsite in the underground parking garage.

I love huge markets like you find in Europe, New York, New Orleans, etc. Minneapolis has its farmers markets, but they’re not really the same. There’s so much more at this style of permanent market.

We loved that you can buy maple syrup in cans in Quebec. It’s cheap, too.

We couldn’t get over the fiddlehead ferns and all the fresh mushrooms, way more than we can find in the midwest. There was also a guy in a booth selling ice cider, which is basically like ice wine but from frozen apples. We picked up some sample bottles to try. Then we stopped at a sandwich stand that had veggie sandwiches, and picked up a couple to go. The guy working there said “sixteen BUCKS!” in an adorable Quebecois accent.

We walked past the macaron stand several times, and it killed me every time. (Look at all of them!) We finally stopped to pick up a couple to take along. We figured if it stopped raining we could have a picnic at Parc Mont-Real.

The rain had other plans for us, apparently. We decided to go see the Parc Olympique, and thankfully we both had our umbrellas along. It was raining steadily.

We found some free parking a few blocks away and walked into the park. Our first stop was in front of the hockey arena, which is named after Maurice Richard. His statue was out front. The arena seemed to be overgrown and in some disrepair, but it appeared to still be in use.

Stade Saputo, home of the Montreal Impact, was nearby. There were soccer players out practicing in the rain. The stadium is pretty new, and really impressive. Maybe someday Minneapolis will get one like this.

We walked over the roof of the planetarium to get to the Olympic tower, which leans over the Olympic Stadium. The Biodome is on the left. If we’d had more time in Montreal, I’d definitely liked to have seen it.

Our destination was the Montreal Tower, which contains a funicular that travels upwards at a 45-degree angle. We’d hoped for nicer weather for the view, but the rain meant the place was pretty empty. (You can see the funicular car near the top in this picture.)

In case you didn’t know, I’m completely obsessed with funiculars. I don’t know why, but I love them. I will go on any and all funiculars, as often as possible. Tickets for this one were $22.50CD, and you can get packages that include Biodome tickets, or a tour of the stadium.

Going up!

Despite the rain, the views were pretty spectacular. There’s a lot of sports-related stuff going on below that was hard to identify. (Much of it is a skate park.) That’s the stadium directly below, Mont-Real in the upper right corner, and the two islands in the river with Parc Jean Drapeau, the casino, and the F1 circuit.

In the mist across the river is Longueuil, where our hotel was. It’s a very convenient spot if you want to take transit everywhere.

FYI, the Montreal Tower holds the Guinness World Record for ‘tallest manmade leaning tower’. Take that, Pisa.

After descending the funicular, we picked up the requisite souvenirs and then headed off to see what we could see of the Olympic Stadium. We were shocked to find the doors open and people inside. Here’s the Olympic pool, which had people doing practice dives at the far end.

We circled around the stadium looking for the statue of the Olympic rings that Matt had seen a photo of, but couldn’t find them. Through a loading dock and up a set of stairs that were covered in trash (it looked like a popular homeless spot) we found the main entrance to the stadium, but it was in such bad shape we assumed it was unused. (We later learned that’s untrue, which was very surprising.)

We were tired of walking in the rain, and abandoned the plan to have a picnic since it was obviously not going to let up. We decided to go back to our hotel around 3:30 and have some lunch, since we had beers there, and chargers for our phones.

(On the way back, we did find the Olympic rings statue on the only corner of the park we hadn’t seen.)

Our Quebecois lunch spread was amazingly good: les sandwichs on perfect bread (one vegetarian, one not), macarons, a small sample of ice cider, and beers direct from the source in Chambly. Delicious.

While we were finishing, my parents texted, asking where we were. They were on a very long roadtrip with a cruise in the middle, and their plans overlapped with ours by a couple days in Quebec. They were on their way to Montreal, and wanted to know if we wanted to get together for dinner. I told them yes, and that we were headed back into the city and would meet them there somewhere.

We got back on the Metro and rode to Champs de Mars and walked into Vieux Montreal again. We wanted to do some more souvenir shopping and see the port before we left. It was raining harder, so we didn’t have the best views, but we saw everything regardless. This area had been packed full of people on Sunday, but today was nearly deserted.

After much parental confusion about locations and directions, we decided on meeting at Saint Bock in the Latin Quarter, another highly recommended beer bar. My parents, who were driving in their minivan, wanted street directions, and all we knew was the Metro station and the cross streets. We found it pretty easily and got a table for six and some beers, and they finally found us a half an hour or so later. They had my aunt and uncle from Georgia in tow.

We were glad that St Bock had a good dinner menu, too, because then we wouldn’t have to figure out further getting-around logistics. We helped them with the French on the menu, and hung out with some really excellent beers while waiting on food. Here’s my mom’s reaction when I made her try a stout:

Our food was pretty excellent, too. We all compared notes on Montreal, and made plans for the next day. We were getting up early and driving to Quebec City, where we had a hotel right in Vieux-Quebec. They’d head out later, and were staying outside of town. (My aunt and uncle have an RV, and therefore stay at campgrounds way outside of cities.) Then we said goodbye, and they headed out while we stuck around to finish our beers and watch some Coupe Memorial on TV (the Kelowna Rockets vs Oceanic Rimouski, which was Matt’s new favorite team, at least until he met the Quebec Ramparts).

We didn’t want to be quite done with Montreal yet, so we walked around the block to a place called La Distillerie that advertised craft cocktails. They had a small, well-organized menu of really interesting options, including a huge fishbowl drink that Matt ended up with for his second round.

In case you missed him: Bally was indeed there. He’s always there with us.

We finished up there and walked back to the train station. It had finally stopped raining, just in time for us to head to the hotel.

In the Longueuil station, we stopped to get a picture of Bally with his cute pal Moovit. (Moovit was so cute I ended up downloading the app for transit schedules, and still use it regularly.)

Back at the hotel, we watched the end of the Blackhawks-Ducks game in overtime, had a beer, finished packing, and went to bed.

We got up pretty early on Mardi morning, checked out of the hotel, got coffee at Tim Hortons in the Metro station, and then got on the road to Quebec City.

I wanted to take Route 40 through Trois-Rivieres because it followed along the north side of the St Lawrence, and I figured it’d be more scenic, if slightly slower. (It wasn’t, really.) There was very little traffic along the way, which was a good thing since there was road work (traveaux) EVERYWHERE. We learned to curse the traveaux just like at home.

We were hoping to make it out of Canada before needing gas, because as far as we could tell by the strange per-liter pricing, gas was super-expensive there. It was nice to have a 50mpg car, too, but that meant the tank was tiny. We pulled off in a town called Batiscan (which we named “body scan”) because they had a Shell sign on the highway, and then learned we had to drive into town. At least it wasn’t too far, and the town was apparently built in the 1640s. Holy crap.

We got gas ($50 Canadian for our tiny tank!), used the restroom, bought pop, snacks (tout garnie chips are the best!), and local beer. They had a really impressive selection of local stuff there, and we were pretty excited to have a beer called “Shawinigan Handshake“.

When I got back behind the wheel and turned the key, nothing happened. The car made an electric sound and did nothing. I tried again, and then again and again. I tried, the gas, the brake, the emergency brake, and nothing worked. The car wouldn’t start.

After a few minutes of panic about being stranded in a tiny Quebecois town, I decided to Google the problem. The first post that came up said that Priuses have a regularly-occurring issue with the steering wheel lock. Suddenly I remembered my really old cars having the same issue. I turned the steering wheel roughly back and forth, and then it started. WHEW.

We got back on the road and arrived at the outskirts of Quebec City around 2pm. It was an impressive view driving into town and seeing the old city up on top of the hill. I was really excited to see it, because it’s known for looking so European.

We managed to get to our hotel only getting lost once, which was miraculous considering the very-European streets. We got there via the Grand Allee, passing through the city gates. It was as gorgeous as expected.

We were staying at the Hotel Chateau Bellevue, which faced a park bordered by the famous Chateau Frontenac on the north, and the Terrasse Dufferin on the East. They only had valet parking, so we left the car out front and checked in. The guy at the front desk was very friendly, and the valet charge of $19/night was shockingly low for the location. Though we were there before checkin, they got us a room on the second floor (overlooking the parking lot, unfortunately – St Lawrence views don’t come cheap, I’m guessing). It was exactly the kind of room you’d hope for in a historic building.

We headed out to see Vieux Quebec. Crossing the park takes you to a set of stairs that goes down to the Terrasse Dufferin (the boardwalk-like walkway that goes along the edge of the Haute-ville, overlooking the St Lawrence River. From the edge, you look down on the Basse-ville.

There were cannons everywhere. Since we have a huge collection of photos of Bally hanging in cannons (i.e. Cannonbally!), we were in hysterics over the massive quantity of them sitting there. No, we didn’t put him in every single one. Just many of them.

The Chateau Frontenac is ENORMOUS. It’s a Fairmont hotel now, and has over 600 rooms.

It towers over the city. And yes, that’s a Starbucks at the bottom.

Here’s the view of the Basse-ville from the terrace. If you’re a sucker you climb down there, but those of us in the know take the funicular, obviously.

I got a text from my mom saying they were arriving in Quebec City, and wondered where we should meet. Since we were right by the most easy-to-find landmark in the city, we decided to meet near the Chateau Frontenac.

We figured it would take them a while, so we decided to walk up to see the Citadel. We headed toward the funicular that went up the hill, and realized as we got there that it was long out of service. We headed up the stairs instead.

A million steps later, we had to rest at the top. My mom said they were getting near, but after climbing up that high there was no way we were going to walk back down right away. It was also much warmer than expected, so we were totally sweaty and overdressed for the weather.

Most of the grounds of the Citadel were barricaded, so we had to circle the entire thing and then climb down a hill to find the entrance. Once there, we were told you can only go on an organized tour (it’s still in active use! We had no idea.), unless you want to go into the small courtyard and look around. Since my parents were waiting, we decided to do that. We checked out the shop quickly, too.

I love Quebec’s motto: je me souviens. We took it as a threat, since it’s way funnier that way.

My mom said they were waiting by the Frontenac, so we headed back that direction. We’d apparently gone a long way, because it took a while to get back. We walked through Vieux Quebec and found them waiting on a corner, worried about their meter running out.

They asked if we wanted to take a drive to see some of the stuff that wasn’t walking distance, and we said yes. (They had been to QC a couple times already, so they knew all the tourist stops.)

We drove out of the city gate again and headed into the park surrounding the Plains of Abraham. The area is gigantic, with a series of parks, trails, historic sites, and scenic overlooks.

And cannons. ALL the cannons.

We drove around some more looking at historic houses and awesome little neighborhoods, and then headed back into Vieux Quebec. I really love any city that has a wall around it.

Then we headed down to the Basse-ville, the oldest part of the city down on the river. The road heading down there is super-steep, which is why when you’re walking the funicular is the way to go. (Plus you know my love of funiculars.)

We found parking in a lot by the river and walked into town (just a couple of blocks). We found this gigantic mural on the side of a building, in a plaza commemorating the old part of Quebec City being a Unesco World Heritage site.

Photos can’t really do the town justice. It’s really incredibly attractive.

My dad was clearly ready for dinner – he walked around looking at menus while we  looked at historic sites. He found an Italian place on this plaza that had an English menu, friendly hosts, and an outdoor patio (at our request), so we decided we’d go there after we were done wandering.

My one recommendation for what not to see in Vieux Quebec is the public restrooms. They’re mixed-gender and totally disgusting.

Check out the funicular!!

After walking around for a while and seeing some shops, it was time for dinner. My aunt and uncle were somewhere in QC, but we didn’t exactly know where. It sounded like they wanted to come with us, but we weren’t exactly sure. We got a table and ordered drinks while we waited.

Eventually we were dying of hunger and tired of waiting for them, so we ordered. We had another beer, and the food came out fairly quickly. By the time they arrived, though, I think the kitchen staff had quit or something. Service ground to a halt, nobody had anything coming to their tables, and the two servers looked like they wanted to cry.

My parents told us to not bother waiting, since we were done eating and had just arrived in town. We were more than happy to be let off the hook.

We walked around the area a while longer and then decided to go up to the Hotel Chateau Frontenac. The funicular was waiting to take us there.

It’s $2.50/person to ride the thing. Worth it.

Here’s the view going up the hill.

The Chateau Frontenac is even prettier at night.

We’d read that the Frontenac had a couple of really good bars, so we decided to check them out. The inside of the building was as opulent as expected, and the bar at the far end was really attractive except for the animal-based furniture.

(It had a hunting-lodge theme, so I guess it’s forgivable.)

Their cocktail menu was impressive, and though the prices were pretty steep, they were nowhere near what we expected. (Nothing like the 30-euro cocktail we had in Paris.) They were really innovative, too: Matt had a mix-your-own Negroni, and I had a gin drink that had an ice-shell cup holding powdered berries. (The drinks were apparently specialties from the SAM bar next door, which was more known for their craft cocktails.)

After a couple drinks there, we decided to check out another bar in town. We’d see a bunch of stuff along the Grand Allee when we’d driven in earlier, so we decided to walk up that direction and see what was there.

It ended up being a lot farther than we thought, and the entire route was up a gradual hill. We hadn’t really recovered from all the walking in Montreal, so we were both a little crabby about it.

Once you got past the Hotel du Parliament building, the street was lined with restaurants. Everything had a sizable patio, and the vibe was way more South Beach than we’d have liked. We saw a beer bar called Les Trois Brasseurs, so we headed in there. It was a huge cavernous place that was mostly empty inside, since everyone was out on the patio. As we walked in, though, we felt a couple raindrops, and felt that inside was probably the place to be.

We found a spot at the bar and ordered a sampler of their beers. The Coupe Memorial and the Rangers-Lightning Stanley Cup game were on TV, so we were happy. Ten minutes later, the sky opened up and it started pouring outside. Suddenly the patio was empty, and the huge bar was very full.

There had been nothing in the weather report that even mentioned rain, so we figured it would pass quickly. It kept going, though, so we ordered another round and waited. The bar had last call at 11:15, so when we noticed that the rain had mostly stopped, we got our check and headed back toward the hotel. It was about a half-mile walk downhill from there.

Within a block, it started raining again. Then it started pouring. I was really glad I had a purse made of vinyl, because we were absolutely soaked. I was wearing flipflops that became really slippery, and walking downhill didn’t help. When we got to the city gate, we huddled under it for a while just to get out of the rain and wring out our clothes.

We walked into the hotel lobby, dripping all over the place. Sorry, Hotel Chateau Bellevue. Back in our room, we had a beer in bed and watched a weird Quebecois call-in game show involving unscrambling the names of places in Quebec. The man hosting it was so annoying that I had to take his picture and keep it forever.

breakfast at the hotel ibis budapest

We got up early and headed down to the lobby for breakfast, which was included with our trip. I figured it’d be the typical hotel breakfast of a bagel and old banana, but they knew how to do it up right with the massive breakfast buffet. We had about 15 choices of fresh bread, cheese, fruit (I loved the stewed plums), unsweetened yogurt with granola, eggs, and coffee with little cancer pellets (techically aspartame). I grew very attached to the pear mug that I was to use three times while we were there.
We took the metro to Moscow Station, got really, really turned around, and finally figured out the direction of the castle. We climbed a very steep hill and went through the Vienna Gate into Old Town, which is enclosed by the castle walls.

mátyás church

We toured Old Town and ended up at Mátyás Church, a massive Neo-Gothic building. The Fishermen’s Bastion behind it offered incredible views of the city, especially of the Pest side and the Chain bridge.

fishermen’s bastion

fishermen’s bastion

There was also a large statue of St. Stephen (Istvan), the first king of Hungary, the very same one whose holy hand lay mummified right across the Danube, and was soon to be immortalized on a smashed forint.

parliament from the fishermen’s bastion

house decoration in old town

old town

chico’s replacement

chain bridge

palace

CUTE!!!

looking towards the elizabeth bridge, gellért hill on the right

the chain bridge with parliament in the background

looking out the window of the fortress at gellért hill

funicular and tunnel through castle hill

We walked down the long cobbled road descending from the castle and caught a tram to the Gellért Hotel, home of the most famous mineral baths in Budapest. It was starting to snow big, fluffy flakes as we arrived; we decided to climb the hill first and then warm up afterwards at the hotel if we needed to.

good old st istvan again

We started up the hill and stopped briefly to see the Cave Church, which wasn’t terribly interesting because it was fairly new. We climbed further up the hill, and the snow was getting heavier. Eventually, we were pretty much hiking up this hill in a snowstorm, and proved once again that we are hardcore.

me, being totally hardcore on gellért hill

It was a hard climb. It was no Mount Hollywood or Sliding Sands Trail, but it was hard. And it was cold. And did I mention blizzarding? We decided to call it Budapest Mountain.

liberation monument

We stopped for a second to take photos for a couple Australian guys who were equally hardcore at the top of the hill, and then proceeded up to see the Liberation Monument, which, from a distance, appears exactly like the waving girl statue in Savannah. ‘Liberation’ in this instance refers to Budapest’s ‘liberation’ by the Soviets in 1945; I heard a rumor that the current construction is to sandblast off remnants of Soviet decor, but I’m not sure if that’s true or not.

We went up into the citadel, and stopped in a little shop to get out of the snow. We found some really cute souvenirs, and bought about a third of the eight-million (well, 60) postcards we had promised to people back home.

we were here.

We started back down the other side of the hill, moving very slowly so as not to slip, tumble, and become giant snowballs rolling down Gellért Hill and plunging into the Danube. We found our way back to the other side of the hill through some scarily-remote areas, and ended up near a really awesome-looking playground with several long slides.

bertine making movies inside the tube-slide [here’s the movie!]

Well, of course we had to do it, even if it meant we ended up with big wet spots on our asses.

We went into the Gellért Hotel on the pretense of looking for lunch, but really we just wanted to use some swank (and free) bathrooms. We walked around the area and saw nothing interesting for lunch, so we decided to take the tram up to Víziváros or Water Town (thus named because it used to flood all the time). There were a few restaurants right near the station. We walked into one, stared at the menu board for a few minutes, then walked back out. We had absolutely no clue what any of it was. Next door, we found a cute little pizza place. It quickly became known as the Luce of Budapest.

Another thing about dining in Europe: they’re just not in a hurry like we are here. Meals take forever. They think it’s unusual if you don’t order appetizers, entrees, and dessert or coffee. You have to catch your server’s eye to get the bill, or they’ll just leave you sitting there until the place closes. Also, there’s no such thing as water on the table. You can order bottled water if you want. Coke Light comes in tiny bottles. Cappuccinos and lattes come in single-shot cups. I’m not sure how Europeans aren’t dying of dehydration on a daily basis, because we were suffering.

We had super-good pizza and coffee, and heard Green Day, Ludacris, and Gorillaz while we were there. We stopped at a pastry shop for cute little breadlike things and took a turn through the mall, which was mostly uninteresting. At that point, we decided it was time: we needed to go to the mineral baths in Budapest.

gellért baths complex

We metro’ed back to the hotel and got our bathing suits, because we’d be damned if even Hungarians were going to see us naked in public. We went back to the Gellért Baths and paid 2400 forint (about $13, discounted with the Budapest Card), and were ushered into the ladies’ half of the complex.

The baths are monstrous, and set up identically for men and women. The only shared area is the swimming pool and large whirlpool. We walked timidly into a giant locker room with cabana-like changing rooms. Two very authoritarian women (Hungarians tend to hold onto their Soviet habits, it seems) were at a table folding aprons and towels. I approached one and asked where we should go. She said, ‘Go upstairs and change!’ I asked, ‘Where do we get towels?’ She said, ‘AFTER!’

We went upstairs and again stood there timidly until another authoritarian woman in a terrycloth smock and slippers came by to direct us to a cabana. We both went in, unsure of whether we were supposed to have our own. We changed and stood there complaining about our lack of towels; if there’s one thing I’m really not thrilled about, it’s parading around in a bathing suit. Even if I am in Eastern Europe.

The lady came back and gave us a token to denote our cabana. She pointed us back downstairs. We approached the front table again and I asked the lady what to do next. I tried handing her the token, and she grabbed the strap of my bathing suit and tied it on. She then grabbed my arm and led us to the showers. She said, pointing, ‘Mineral bath to the right, swimming pool to the left.’ And she disappeared.

We showered and headed into the baths. There were two large pools with tile benches around the edges, so we sat shoulder-deep in the bath. One was 36 celsius and the other was 38 (about 100F), so we sat in the second one. It was so relaxing. It wasn’t very crowded at all. About a third of the women were in bathing suits, a third topless (generally the younger, cute girls), and the other third bare-ass naked; definitely the ones you really didn’t want to see naked, either. We did our best to not look, because it was occasionally alarming. At one point, one of them bent down and squatted to pull up her suit; Bertine was scarred for life.

After relaxing in the mineral bath for a while, we decided to see what was in the other really ornate room with the showers. On one side, we found a steam room, which was 45-50C (about 120F). It was painful to be in there. If you sat on the bench, which was above the vents, you burned your ass. If you stood, your head was in the much-hotter area. I found my best bet was to stand there, not moving, and just focus on my breathing. I felt claustrophobic from the heat and strong sulfur smell, which burned my nostrils. I could only manage about a minute in there before I had to dash out.

On the other side of the fancypants showers was the cold bath. It was a little round thing like a jacuzzi, but it was 18C (64F, although it felt like ice water). Bertine said it was the thing to go dunk in there after the sauna, so I set one foot in it and decided there was no way in hell anyone was getting me in there. We were standing on the steps giggling about it when a topless lady pushed past us to climb into the bath. As she walked down the steps, she started laughing with us, and gestured for us to follow. She grabbed her boobs and bounced up and down, dunking in the water, saying, ‘Wooo! Wooo! Woooo!’ Well, at that point, we couldn’t not do it. We climbed in. We dunked the same way she did it. I wanted to die. We went running back to the warm bath as fast as we could.

After a while, we decided to check out the swimming pool. It’s in this insanely opulent room with marble and mosaics and huge pillars that go into the pool. We joined the others swimming slow laps, Soviet-style. There was even an arrow telling us which way to swim. After doing several laps and talking, we were hanging out in the shallow end, about to head back to the mineral bath, when something happened. All of a sudden, the entire shallow end turned into a giant jacuzzi. Everybody rushed to grab their own vent on the floor of the pool, and we all just bobbed around there while the pool bubbled. IT WAS AWESOME.

I really wish I could’ve taken photos in the baths, because they were amazing. Even the pictures I’ve found online don’t do it justice. We got chased out by a security guard when trying to take photos afterwards.

We went back to the baths for a while, took another turn in the steam room and cold bath, and were finally so prunelike we decided it was time to go. We showered and were still confused about where the towels came from, so I consulted the unfriendly matron at the front again. She led us to a room where a woman was passing out bath sheets. Not towels, but sheets like you’d put on a bed. We had to swear and cross our hearts and hope to die that we wouldn’t take them back into the baths. We wrapped ourselves up and went back to our cabana to change.

We took a tram, then the metro, back to the Church of the Holy Hand to obtain our critically-important smashed forints. Afterwards, we stopped at the big Szupermarket at Nougaty Station again to pick up treats for the people back home: liquor (pear brandy and Zwack Unicum), Kinder eggs, and other candy, as well as water (since we had no intention of dehydrating like the Europeans do).

the mall of hungary (westend center)

We threaded our way back through the mall of Hungary to have dinner at a place we’d seen the night before, called Leroy Cafe. The food was amazing. We had broccoli and gorgonzola crepes, eggplant dip, vegetable toast, cream of asparagus soup, coke light, and cappuccinos.

On the way back to the hotel, we almost got lost in the metro beneath Nougaty Pu. We made it back about 8:30pm and were absolutely exhausted again. We both laid down and promptly dozed off. I woke up an hour later to take a shower, and Bertine was talking in her sleep. All night long, I heard her rolling over to drink water. That hydration thing in Europe is serious business.