01/01/2020 to 02/01/2020 - Montreal / Canada

Early in the morning, we landed in Montreal from New York by plane. Here we picked up a rental car and drove into the city. Since we couldn't check into our accommodation yet, we drove through the empty, snowy streets to get an overview of the city. Since the best view is from above, we went up Mont Royal. The city's mountain and namesake is only 233 meters high. From the terrace of Chalet du Mont Royal, we still had a great view of the million city, which is located on an island in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. We walked through the large Parc du Mont Royal, discovered snowmen and snow bears, cross-country skiers, sledders on the Lac aux Castors toboggan run, and small hungry animals. That was enough for today and we went to bed. The next morning, we definitely needed to sleep in after being awake for almost 36 hours. Later, our discovery tour continued through the largest city in the Canadian province of Quebec. We took a round trip on the motor racing track by car. Only 30km/h was allowed, so we had plenty of time to inspect the grandstands and garages. Directly across from us, we could see the Biosphere Montreal. It was built for the World Exhibition in 1967. Today it houses an environmental and water museum. Then we parked our car centrally and continued on foot. It's pretty cold out here. And because that's often the case in winter in Montreal, the city planners have moved a large part of the city center underground. The largest underground city in the world was created. There are hundreds of shops, restaurants, cinemas, theaters, event halls, subway stations, and even an ice hockey stadium. But not everything is underground, so we continued above ground. We walked to Place d'Armes. Here stands a monument of Paul De Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the first governor of Montreal. Located directly behind it is Notre Dame de Montreal. Ben and Lukas didn't want to see the Roman Catholic basilica from the inside, so they had to wait for me outside. All I can say is that the two of them really missed out. The interior of this spiritual building in radiant blue and gold was magnificent to see and I was quite impressed. Our walk through the city continued to Marche Bonsecure. Formerly used as a market hall, later as a town hall and parliament building, it is now used as a cultural center. Another very important building is the Hotel de Ville, located on Place Jaques Cartier. We only looked at the town hall from the outside because we had gotten hungry by now. Since everything here is quite French and the French like to eat cheese, we treated ourselves to a very typical and delicious cheese fondue.