Throughout Montreal, banks of bicycles — called Bixis — are available for on-the-spot, automated rental. Simply slip in your credit card, take an available bicycle (velos) and ride. When you’re done, return the Bixi to any rental station you see. A simple $5 fee allots riders a 24-hour rental period, with some nominal additional fees for multi-hour rides. (A full day’s worth of bicycle sightseeing could cost less than a single taxi fare.
Plateau Mont Royal could be Montreal’s quintessential urban bicycle destination. One of Montreal’s hippest neighbourhoods, the area is characterized by wrought-iron staircases, brick and stone architecture, cafes, open-air restaurants and boutique shopping. Once off Rue St. Denis, the main route into the area, traffic is calmed and bikes outnumber cars.
Mount Royal Park
A gravel pathway, wide as two-lane-road, winds around Montreal’s Crown Jewel — Mount Royal Park — leading cyclists, joggers and strollers on a sweaty jaunt to the 233-metre summit. Designed by Fredrick Law Olmstead — famed architect of both New York’s Central Park and Vancouver’s Stanley Park — 692-acre Mount Royal Park can easily be a day-trip in itself. You take a leisurely roll around Beaver Lake, up past the famous Chalet Mont Royal and into your top park-picks: the non-denominational Mount Royal Cemetery and the Catholic Notre Dame des Neiges Cemetery.
Vieux Montreal
Four-hundred-year-old stone buildings, bistro patios, a symphony playing in the streets — this is the Montreal of your dreams. At the waterfront, would-be Cirque du Soleil performers try-and-fail on the tourist trapeze. It would be perfect, if it had just a few less tacky souvenir stores to offend the eyes. vieux-montreal At this moment, the sun reappears.
0 Comments
