Restday in Montreal

We used this day for urgent replacements. Franks bike trousers started to fall apart and we were glad, that Denis showed us a good shop where we could buy new ones.

After that we had a bike sightseeing tour of Montreal with Denis. First stop, the Formula 1 race course. Denis went with us on the circuit and we did one round on the bicycle. It´s surprising, how small the track is, how narrow the curves and it is not imaginable, that someone drives there with more than 300 km/h. This guys need a lot of courage. The racing track is on an artificial island (Notre dame), which was build in the Saint Lawrence River for the world expo, taking place in Montreal in 1967.



Bike rental station



Dog-Nanny


From there we continued our town sightseeing tour to the old town, which is very nice restored, feels quite European, with countless places to sit, lots of culture, cafes and even horses with carriages to tour tourists arround. The whole place feels very relaxed, even in the evening on the market, nobody seems in a hurry, everyone seems to be just easy. So we adapted too, strolled through the market, bought some vegies and did nothing more.
Montreal is the first place where we see really a lot of people on bicycles. The town has a cool community bike system called Bixi. You can pick up a bike at one of the more than 100 stations and drop it off at another. It cost 5$ a day, no membership required, only a credit card. Great idea, which we would love to see in other towns.
Even though Montreal was fascinating, we both look forward to get out of town, the countryside is more our world.