Montreal vs Ottawa

Driving around Montreal and Ottawa

Montreal, Quebec 

I honestly don't know where to begin to describe the roads and traffic in Montreal.  Dennis has renamed Montreal as Constructionville and I have to agree with him for I have never seen so many roads under construction in one city at the same time in my life!  Combining the volume of people that make Montreal their
home with the sheer number of streets under construction, it was by far the worst big city we have driven through to date.  We knew that going into Montreal was going to be a pain due to the traffic signs written in French but we had not anticipated the congestion.  Silly me!

I had read Montreal is the most populated city in Canada so we knew it would be busy.  Busy is an understatement!  And don't get me started on finding your way around the city to visit the "tourist" sites.  There are no signs (or any that we saw) on the freeway to let you know what exit to take or even the general direction.

We ended up driving around for over an hour and yes, found ourselves once again on the totally wrong side of town and starving to boot!  We decided to give Tim Horton's a try mainly because the sign was in English, therefore our thoughts were the menu would be too.

Our first clue that the menu was not in English was when we walked in and had no idea where to place our order.  The sign that should
have read "Order Here" read "Commander Ici"!  Luckily, after looking closer, we realized there were English translations in very small print below the menu board items.

For a minute, I was afraid I was going to have to make the sacrifice and just eat something I could point at in the cases... Donuts!  But instead, I got a grilled cheese sandwich.  Really wished I had gotten the donuts because the sandwich wasn't that great.  For those of you who have no idea what Tim Horton's is, here are a few facts:  It is Canada's largest fast-food restaurant chain that specializes in coffee and pastry items.  It has over 4,846 restaurants in 14 countries with the company's headquarters being in Toronto.  To me, it's a combination of Starbucks, Panera Bread, and Duncan Donuts. No wonder it's so popular.

After a very quick lunch, we finally decided to give it one more try on finding the Notre Dame Basilica.  That's when we found how seriously crowded it was going to be.  After riding down block after block, we finally gave up on finding a parking spot big enough for the truck and settled for a drive-by of the Basilica.  At this point in the journey, we were over Montreal and were ready to get the heck out of dodge.  We have been told by a few locals to come back in 3 to 5 years and the city should be done with construction.  Right!

Ottawa, Quebec

Our drive up to Ottawa was a completely different experience.  Thank God!  We decided to take surface roads the entire way to gawk at the scenery, so it was a very pleasant drive through cornfields and dairy farms.  Once we got to Ottawa, we also found the city very easy to navigate through but, once again, parking the beast was a different story.

 

After cruising around the city we drove around for a bit and followed this bike trail that ran along the Ottawa River miles.  It was very popular and I can understand why.  It would be a beautiful place to ride your bike.

My one regret is that we did not take the time and have lunch at the Aulde Dubliner Pub.  It looked like it was straight out of Dublin, Ireland. We will have to put it on our list of places to revisit.



Well, that is my two cents on two of Canada's largest cities.  A thumbs down for Montreal and two thumbs up for Ottawa!

Notes from Dennis

I have been amazed at the sheer number of square miles that are being farmed up here in the North Country!  Their growing season is super short, compared to the USA, yet they still grow some serious food.

Benjamin, the truck, is a huge hit up here.  Men and boys will gawk at it as we ease by.  Most of them will point at the giant replacement bumper & grill guard hanging off the front.

Diesel up here is $$$!  It is sold by the liter, so when I have 1/8th of a tank left and fill up - about 30 gallons - it is costing us over $100 (US)!  We have to keep this in mind before we blindly jump in the truck to drive 100's of kilometers just to visit one little thing.  :-(