After spending a week in Vermont, Shae and I took a trip up to Canada for 10 days. Our friend had come to visit from the UK and was flying out of Montreal, so we decided to spend a few additional days there after taking her to the airport.
Seeing as our friend would be staying with us overnight in Montreal before heading home, we decided to book an apartment on Airbnb. Check out this post for some tips on how to save money when booking on Airbnb.
The apartment we found was on the 41st floor above the Bell Centre and gave stunning views of downtown Montreal.
The central location of the apartment put us in a perfect position to walk around the city to explore. So in the morning before our friend flew home, we headed over to Old Montreal which we’d heard was a beautiful area.
There was a crowd starting to gather by the time we arrived outside the Notre-Dame Basilica. Not only was it a Sunday, but later on there was also some kind of parade outside which was apparently to celebrate a local military troop returning home.
Although I’m not an architecture buff, I loved walking around Montreal as there are tons of unique, beautiful buildings.
We made our way to Place Jacques-Cartier, an outdoor market area that had street performers that morning.
We walked down to the water and back up a different path running parallel to a zipline.
After walking around for a while, we headed back down St Paul Street. This was a pedestrian walkway that reminded me of a European city – not too surprising given the strong French influence in the city.
The walk back to our apartment took us past all kinds of other interesting-looking buildings.
Final Thoughts
I’m sure there’s a lot more to Montreal that we missed, so we’ll hopefully return in the future. Still, we enjoyed our few days in the city, especially thanks to the beautiful architecture there.
Just wondering what you thought of your Airbnb?
Overall, we liked it. The apartment itself is beautiful, has great views and is in a good location. There’s no parking, so you have to park nearby which was a bit of a pain with all our stuff. During the week, it’s something like $25 per day for parking, so fairly expensive.
The sheets & bedding weren’t great – they were clean, it’s just that they seemed to be made of polyester or something like that rather than cotton, so it wasn’t very comfortable.