25th Anniversary in Montreal

25 years together with the woman of your dreams is something to celebrate. And we chose to do that in Montreal, Quebec over an extra long weekend.

Ana and I last visited Montreal exactly five years ago for our 20^th anniversary. During the drive to Montreal (made it in seven hours…a record), Ana and I were reminiscing about that trip and we positive it couldn’t have been our 20^th, and must have been only two or three years before. Wrong. Time holds no prisoners. To be sure I pulled up an old blog posting and proved it. One evening we sat together on Crescent Street and formulated a longer term dream list of travel ideas and destinations, as we watched the hoards of university kids packing into the surrounding restaurants and bars. The dream destinations on that list are still enticing and desirable today, and we were now five years closer, tantalizingly close, to pursuing those goals.

So, for us, Montreal is a love getaway, a place to establish dreams, a place to celebrate our life partnership, and a place to return to. There really is no match for Montreal, at least not in Canada or the US. It is the greatest city on the continent. That’s right. There’s no better.

We arrived in Montreal and checked into the Empire Suites hotel, in the Latin Quarter neighbourhood. We weren’t really settled until after 11 and decided to stay in and save our first night on the town for the next evening.

Morning arrived and we set out by foot for a day of wandering. And wander we did, 20 kilometres worth, through some new areas, and some we’d visited before, but felt new. We walked to the old port area, mesmerized with the two giant cruise ships there, went for coffee at Crew Collective and Café (a more magnificent coffee shop exists not), criss-crossed streets on whims and fancies, had lunch and a beer at a brasserie, explored Crescent Street and McGill university, and I had a pleasurable lie down on a Rue St. Laurent public bench while Ana browsed the aisles and shelves of Winners. I was again impressed by the pervasiveness and sheer volume of public furniture in Montreal. In every public place you visit, you will find somewhere to sit, lean, lie, or lounge. As many cities are ripping out public furniture (to make life even more miserable for homeless people), Montreal continually adds it. Providing places to sit and rest or visit is a love letter to the public. It’s a license to chill. It provides relief from the overwhelming pressure to spend time and money in commercial establishments. And it is kind.

After an early evening chill out session and foot rest back at the hotel, we entered the evening, choose a lovely outdoor Thai restaurant for a late dinner on a bustling Latin Quarter street, and munched crispy pork, jasmine rice, and pad thai as we sipped Pelegrino and swayed to the sounds of the Montreal night.