Year Two Day Sixty Eight - Bus Tour Around Montreal

Dear all, 

As we were only in Montreal for a few days, we decided to hop on a (London???) bus and do a quick tour of the city in the comfort of a (London?????) Double Decker ( visa Tower Bridge and Aldgate apparently...). We used the city-wide group Gray Line http://www.grayline.com/Montreal who seemed to know what they were doing and had a veritable fleet of buses on hand to scoop up eager tourists. 

Vince and Darren needed coffee before we could embark ( seen here running down the high street as the bus was about to leave) but once they were on board, we were off!

 We actually drove through the Old Town before we went over the river to the next stop, The Casino!

We got to see St Lawrence River in all it's gushing glory - it is pretty impressive and we had a splendid view from the top of the bus. 

The boys were pretty happy when we left the Casino (Evil, Evil Casino) http://www.casinosduquebec.com/montreal and we sped back into town towards La Centre Ville and *wait for it* shops... 

We stopped off in St.Catherine Street (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saint_Catherine_Street) where we tried to find some cologne for Vince ( he was on the look out). It seemed timely to try something from the 'Jean Paul Gaultier Range' but after a couple of squirts..we decided that it maybe wasn't the scent for Vince. The street was rammed with shops ( and churches) but we decided to head on with the tour ( it was 'hop on, hop off) and get some 'culture' 

We then visited, St Joseph's Oratory, an impressive structure up on the hill looking over Montreal. http://www.saint-joseph.org/

We then stopped off in the glorious Mont Royal Park http://montreal.com/parks/mtroyal.html  - Montreal's equivalent of Central park, an expansive mass of park land full of revellers, runner and gorgeous cafes. We found one cafe and settled in to enjoy the sun and a brief escape from the inner city. 

The cafe was lovely, French and after a brief moment inside (**even a Tuesday seems busy in Montreal), we were promoted to the Patio. 

After a couple of beers, off we went again, this time back into town via the observatory point. 

Back in the city, we saw more of Montreal at its best - glorious statues and buildings on either side. 

Montreal is beautiful and was had a wonderful afternoon zipping around the city on our big red bus. Brave Montreal!