Le Plateau

Mom decided to stay in the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon while I made the two mile walk up to Le Plateau.  We had read about this area on all the must-see-and-do lists about Montreal, and it was the subject of all my favorite pictures on the many Montreal pages I follow on Instagram.

It's sort of the up and coming part of town, and being in the middle of gentrification, it has lots of cool shops and bars to draw people to the area.  My favorite though is all the little townhouses with staircases from the door to the sidewalk.

This is the area I could see myself living in if I ever end up moving here.  The houses had so much character, and I had a lot of fun strolling down streets and looking at the cute little residences.

It started getting colder as the sun went down, but I was warm in my big coat and from all the walking.  The streets and sidewalks were all pretty clear of snow but I did pass a few alleyways that were completely covered in ice.

The other really neat thing about this area was the abundance of mural art.

There were big ones and lots of small ones in a range of styles, varying levels of detail, and of wildly different subject matter.  My favorite was this one of two figures dancing that look like they're made out of glass or liquid.  The colors just jump out against the flat, black background.

As you can see in some of the pictures, there is some tagging-like graffiti, but the murals were so colorful and captivating that you hardly notice!

After wandering around for an hour or so, I was starting to get tired and a little hungry, so I figured it was time to start heading back to the hotel.  The walk back did not disappoint.

I got back and told Mom about my westward adventure before we decided on a little Italian place for dinner the next block over from the hotel, which was good because I was pretty tired after the 20,000+ steps from earlier in the day!

(photos by e.hunt)