So, I should probably start by pointing out that they have a lot of very nice churches, more than in Paris for that matter.

The Basilique Notre Dame is absolutely beautiful:

Saint Joseph du Mont Royal was also nice, close to the Sacré Coeur in Paris:

but there were many others:

St Patrick's Basilica

nice inside too

Of course, there was more than just churches, but they were worth mentioning :)

First, quick map of Montréal and surroundings:

Food, yum :)

Place de Jacques Cartier is a bit like Place du Tertre in Paris

After visitng the Biodome on Isle St Hélène, Montréal was starting summer festival season, and had an electronic music festival on Isle St Hélène, so we went to Piknicelectronik to see James Holden who was spinning around that time:

James Holden

We then went to tour the Island on bixi bikes, and went over to Ile Notre-Dame

Circuit Gilles Villeneuve on Ile Notre-Dame just before the Grand Prix

North of Isle St Hélène

Place de Jacques Cartier at night

The next morning we went to the Olympic Stadium and its tower, the biodome, and the botanical garden:

We went to the biodome next:

And the botanical garden was also quite a nice visit:

our cat would have been so happy in there :)

fleurs!

More random pictures form visiting the next day:

Rue St Denis at Night

Views from Mt Royal

Yum :)

Those birds are angry :)

We also had some nice meals :)

Foie Gras

Dessert

More Foie Gras :)

Many more pictures, but that's enough for this page, click on the link below for more :)
Long story short, though, we had a fantastic time in Montréal, it's a great city to visit.

It's a quaint little ski resort town, and the first ski resort I've visited when there is no snow.

Room wasn't bad :)

feels like something is missing :)

I guess they have snow during the winter :)

Interestingly, getting to Quebec City was easiest and fastest by bus: they had a bus going there every hour, you could just show up and be there in 3H door to door (actually faster than a plane), and enjoy power and wifi during the trip. The bus was clean and enjoyable, that beats greyhound by a little bit :)

So, Québec City is a wonderful little city to visit. I can all be done on foot, no car required (there are buses, but you can do without them).

Eh, let's do like Montréal, and start with the many churches. The difference for Québec City is that all the Anglicans have left, so the Protestant and Anglican churches have become empty, one has become a theatre school, and another one a library. The Catholic ones are doing a bit better.

The biggest/nicest church is Notre Dame de Québec, for which I got to visit the crypt which is still being escavated in hopes to find the remains of Samuel de Champlain, regarded as founder of Québec and father of New France:

Bibliothèque St Jean Baptiste:

Notre Dame Des Victoires in Lower Town:

Other random churches:

First, quick map of Quebec City and surroundings:

Ok, so like Montréal, it wasn't just churches. Québec City is most known for its Chateau de Frontenac (which is actually a fancy hotel, not a Castle):

staff at the Chateau wears clothing from the period

Fortifications are still around the city, and it still has its citadelle that was built to defend the city from further attacks (after the British managed to take it from the French, they had to defend themselves from both the French and the Americans and won several attacks because their resupply ships got there faster than the enemy's):

you can walk all around the fortifications, it was fun

they were prepared for coming ships :)

yes, they were ready :)

More random pictures from around town:

Maison Jacquet, dating 1677

La rue Couillard, je connais bien :)

I had a few crepes too many :)

The plains of Abrahams, which is where the British attacked from

Funiculaire between High Town and Lower Town

Rotating Restaurant

the citadel

Lower town:

more food, yeah :)

yet more yum :)

And after 2 days of intense visiting, it was time to go home:

That's all folks :)

had a nice dinner before leaving for the airport

I went to get a few pictures from Prospect Point at sunset. The only problem was getting a ride back to downtown was hard since cabs didn't quite want to come there to pick me up, but oh well, the view was worth it.

Jennifer was supposed to join me friday night for the weekend, but unfortunately United screwed up with her plane, so she never made it. As a result, I went to visit stuff on my own during the weekend, and started with Capilano Park and then went up Grouse Mountain.

they're known for their long suspension bridge

they also just finished a fully suspended path on the clifside

I then took a quick cab to the bottom of Grouse Mountain, and instead of taking the gondola up, I climbed up the grind in about 1h, which is a respectable time I'm told (but it does kick your ass, it's pretty straight up).

the top

Grouse Mountain is a ski resort during the winter, but they have lots of attractions during the summer, which are worth the visit (on top of just the view of course):

They had a nice bird show:

Their bears seemed pretty happy:

Their lumberjack show was quite good too, those guys knew their stuff and competed on multiple skills for our amusement :)

their tree climbing skills were impressive too

balancing on a log until the other guy falls off

When I was done, I took the fun way down, parasailing. It was way way overpriced (a lot of money goes to the mountain for the privilege), but it was definitely fun and a great view.

then it was my turn

we landed in a park in the end

From there, I took a bus back and a ferry across back to downtown to have dinner at the Top of Vancouver revolving restaurant.

you can see the restaurant

I got day and night shots while having dinner

The next morning I took my rollerblades to go around downtown's waterfront path via Stanley Park.

They had a nice little aquarium in the park, so I went there.

I then continued the rollerblade tour:

went to the Grandville Island Market:

back to downtown:

and on my way to the airport, I went to see the very nice Bloedel Conservatory, which was small, but a lot of fun:

I love the colors on that one

And just like that, the packed 2 day weekend was over, and the tram back to the airport.

That's all folks...

New SFO tower

Welcome to Vancouver

Early sunset on the bus ride to Whistler

You can read about our time in Whistler here and heli skiing there.

Since weather in Whistler sucked (rain instead of snow), I headed back early and went to see a few museums in Vancouer starting with the science museum. Its open body exposition was good, the rest was "meh"

I have big hands :)

this will keep jennifer up at night :)

I then went to MOA, the Museum of Anthropology:

nice board

local first natives got the short end of the stick, as usual :(

At the end of the day, I drove to Granville Island for a bit of shopping and food:

The next day, I went to the space museum/marine museum/vancouver museum (all in one place). none of the 3 was earth shattering:

And I kept the last hour for the best Bloedel Floral Conservatory, I love this place and its beautiful and yet tame birds:

bathing time

haha, death to you selfie stick users!

small mice were also there to enjoy the food :)

For there, I drove to the airport and got back home. Good little 26 hours in Vancouver...

Since we were going to Torronto, I figured we'd arrive a bit early the first day and go to Niagara Falls. Unfortunately, it started with Budget (the only place that had cars left) sucking ass, and taking 30mn to get us a car despite being registered for quick pass, and then having to return the car and exchange it bcause it had a check engine light on (54mn wasted total). Next, the drivers around Torronto are total idiots, who caused multiple accidents on the road, and made the trip a lot longer than it should ahve been:

this was only one out of 3 accidents on the road

We finally arrived in the area around 18:00, quite late :( but thankfully sunset wasn't very early either, so we still had a bit of time, although it was rushed. We started with a nice butterfly sanctuary, and went by a cable car that goes over a whirlpool (but was closed due to wind):

one of the bridges to America

Next, we took an elevator down to a white river walk:

Finally we got to the main part of town, albeit pretty close to sunset, and parking was a bit challenging:

the US side has a walk to see the water and falls from above

sadly we were already in twighlight by the time we reached the main falls

We then had a decent dinner at the visitor center complex, and came back for the night illuminations and fireworks:

We then had a longish drive back to Torronto, but thankfully the road was much more clear on the way back.

The rest of the time, we went to visit Toronto:

from our hotel, we had view on the boats that were going back and forth to Toronto Islands, a big park

and small commuter plane airport

Toronto is a very nice city to visit, lots of things to see. We did the CN tower first in the morning as the lines are known to get very long later on (hours):

30X zoom, woot! :)

Next, we went to Casa Loma, a very impressive residence built by a successful businessman 100 years ago:

great view from the residence

there is a tunnel going under the street to the annex

the never finished swimming pool was turned into a movie theatre

From there, we took a clueless uber that barely managed to get us to the Royal Ontario Museum. Very varied collections, well worth the visit:

poor wolf, got spikes in its nose :)

there was a special expo on tatoos

By then, it was raining pretty hard. We had a look at the nearby university, and found our way to the Ripley aquarium (on its own page):

The next morning, we started with the St Lawrence Market indoors:

We then found our way to the Ontario Science Museum, a bit far away, but in a very nice facility on multiple levels following a hill down:

After the museum, we went to Chinatown and walked around there. There were also many murals:

It was then time to slowly get back to downtown. We took the underground streets through PATH, a full city underground for when it's all cold and snowy above ground:

Toronto was a nice city to visit. Seeing the major sights in 48H was a bit rushed, but I think we got most of it :)

frozen lake

After skiing, we spent a bit of time in downtown and went to the city museum before doing dinner:

The next day since the snow was not great, we ended by noon and went to the rail museum:

the train cars were huge

and the steam engine was also gigantic

And that was it for Revelstoke, nice little place to stop if you're driving the trans canadian highway 1, or you're there for skiing.

Of course, we were there to snowboard, more pictures here

The first day, we went to snowboard at Lake Louise and after that we went to see the castle by Lake Louise. It was fun to visit, especially walking on the frozen lake, which became a hockey field for the local canadians:

The next day, pafter snowboarding at sunshine village|/perso/snow/post_2017-02-20_Mountain-Collective-Tour_-Banff_s-Sunshine-Valley_-Canada.html], we went to see the Banff castle and downtown:

The castle had a few stores/art galleries worth visiting:

Then we visited a few of those in Banff:

this looked yummy, but it was full

And after all the fun, it was time to go back to Calgary and get a flight back:

Before you ask, I was there for the Porsche Ice Experience Driving Course at Circuit Mecaglisse.

got a quick-ish direct flight from SFO

Montréal was indeed snowy all over

I had a great dinner at Jerome Ferrer's Europea

The next morning, I went to check out the RedPath Museum in the university:

you can still bike in winter

They have a great collections of shells and pretty rocks :)

From there, I took the underground paths to avoid the cold. It's actually quite hard to route underground. I tried for a while and eventually gave up and went back to the surface with the cold weather.
I next went to the Musee Grevin, which was quite nice:

Next, I went to visit the Google Office again

Interestingly they are testing electric busses with fast recharging stations

Next, I walked in the bitter cold towards Centre d'Histoire de Montréal:

the universal expo of 1967 looked great

look

Turns out I still had a bit of time left to see Pointe à Callière that had been significantly improved in the last years. Well worth the visit to see the foundations of the old city:

As I mentioned, there was a bit of snow:

freezing rain is fun

seems fun to have to scrape that

they did a good job clearing the main streets though

Yeah, frozen river:

looks like this pickup truck is just parked on the frozen river next to where the boat

Habitat 67 across the mostly frozen river:

The next morning, I started with the Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal, which doens't look so fancy from the outside but is one of my favourite ones inside. I went early in the morning during the dead season, so it was almost empty, great for pictures:

Next, I went Centre des Sciences de Montréal:

A fun thing is that building, including museums have big rooms for the artic cold jackets that people wear outside, including eskimo-like boots:

And last, but not least, I stopped by Chateau Ramezay before it was time for me to head out and drive to Circuit Mecaglisse:

And that was it for Montreal.

I went up the tower for a few shots

The next morning, went for the peace bridge and a couple of museums:

found some michoko birds

they're supposed to be thieves, but they're pretty

I then went to the Military Museums first and then went to the Hangar Flight Museum before going back to the airport to fly home.

Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal has a great light show, called Aura, which was well worth it (pictures not allowed during the show though):

The next morning, I went around town for a few pictures in the many churches and couple of museums:

I went to check out the museum of modern art, and it was disappointing:

The observatory allowed or nice pictures:

Next was the much better Museum of Fine Arts, which was worth a good 3H, although I only had 2H-ish:

They had a special exhibition on Egypt and mummies, that was pretty good:

Last, I went to meet my friend Nicholas Zin and we went up to Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal:

Then came the fantastic Porsche Ice Force+ Program at Circuit Mecaglisse North of Montreal

And on the way back to the airport, I stopped at Montreal's Ecomuseum Zoo. It was quite cold, but cool to see animals happily frolicking in the snow:

Oh and getting to canada kind of sucked, outside of the typical vaccinate + PCR test requirement, they had a separate and completely useless arrivecan app that asked you a 2nd time, in a completely different system, the same info you had already given the same government, to board the plane. Of course, the app and the website both failed for me, so I went through a bunch of extra crap to enter the country. Could have been worse though, the lucky that got selected for yet another covid test on entry, ended up in a 2H line before they could enter the country:

honestly all this feels utterly pointless by now

But eh, there was snow, so there is that:

cool thing I spotted from the plane, people built an ice racetrack on the frozen river

I braved the cold to go see the beautiful cathedral again, and it was closed, sigh

Bonsecour market opened late (11:00) and not much was open inside

there was a boat spa that was open

Nico met me for a nice lunch

and we went to play with his train :)

After I was done with the ice experience, we had a reasonable snow dump, made driving back a bit more fun :)

you can drag your kid in the streets

I met my friends again for lunch befoe heading back to the airport:

Nico met me for a nice lunch

and they dragged the kid back home :)

I met my friend Nicolas for dinner after arriving

The next day, I went to drive to Laval for a few other attractions, starting with Cosmodome. It's not a must do attraction, but I was curious to check it out since it was onthe way to Esterel:

the main attraction was a custom mission to mars or to the moon

it was interesting

it included some games

the displays after that were basic and a bit underwhelming

Next door was the Armand Frappier, a Canadian scientist who helped to discover vaccines:

I got to help testing a vaccine :)

mission accomplished :)

I then checked out MontVR, it was ok enough, just worth the 1H I spent there ;)

From there was time for the Porsche Ice Experience during the few following days.

On the way back to the airport, I had most of a day, so I went to check out the Biodome and related attractions in downtown:

had to clean up my car a bit

During my drive, I noticed that people had tent carports in their driveways to avoid cleaning their cars

I started with the insectarium which was quite nice

really cool camouflage

pretty colors

beautiful fellow

Next, the botanical garden was a bit snowy but nice to see:

Last, but not least was the biodome:

I also watchd a movie at the planetarium, and then it was time to get back to the airport and fly home.