Our Day in Montreal

On Friday, we embarked on Vista.  Basically, we settled in, got re-familiar with the ship  and crew, went for a walk, and had a casual pizza dinner on board.

Today, Saturday, we ventured out to parts of Montreal that we hadn't been to.  We started off by taking an Uber to the Jean Talon Market.  It is a terrific outdoor market with many colorful and interesting local products.  The only thing that we bought was some dark chocolate with maple butter, not for us but for a couple of gifts.

After our visit to the market, we walked down to the Mile End neighborhood.  We passed through residential areas that have houses which seem to be typical of Montreal.

We found a cafe appropriately named 'larry'.  It was a small cafe that was abuzz, had good food, and Larry's Lager.  What more could we ask?

We then made our way down St. Laurent Blvd to make our way back to the ship.  As with many cities these days, there were some wonderful murals along the way.

We also passed Schwartz's Deli which apparently is known for their smoked meats.  There was quite a queue outside.

Our walk took us through China Town before we arrived back at the port.

After about 6 miles of walking it felt good to sit and have an iced coffee and some pastries in Barista.  This was essentially the way we love to spend our days in the places we visit.  The most rewarding part of the day though was that Linda, despite her recent bout with long COVID and a nagging hip problem, was able to do all of that with no problem!  Way to go Linda!

This evening we set sail for Quebec City where we have a non-ship's excursion booked tomorrow.  Then we are looking forward to 2 sea days.  We were originally supposed to have a stop in Saguenay on Monday but that was cancelled due to some ship's operational issue which I didn't understand.  The good news is that we received $1000 in future cruise credit as compensation.  Not a bad trade-off - $1000 vs a day in Saguenay!

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry

Do You Know The Way to L.A.?

Let's say that you were in Montreal, Canada and you wanted to go to LA?  Do you know the way?  I suppose that the easiest way would be to fly.  Or maybe a train or bus?  You could rent a car I guess.  But, wait, you could go by cruise ship which is what we are doing!  We flew to Montreal last night, Wednesday and are spending the day here prior to getting on the Oceania Vista tomorrow.  From here we will cruise out the St. Lawrence and then down the East Coast to Miami.  When we get to Miami we are getting a bonus 2 days on the ship - it is the first visit to Miami, the corporate home of Oceania, for this new ship so they are doing a "Showcase Sailing" for the locals.  When we leave Miami we will be sailing through the Caribbean and through the Panama Canal before heading up to LA and from there it will be a quick Lyft home!  In total, we'll be on board for 33 days.

Today in Montreal we did a bit of a wander through the old town eventually winding up at the port for a view of Vista.

We got a first view of fall colors.  We're hoping that it only gets better as we make our way through Canada and New England.

We made our way to the Bonsecours Market which was a place to shop for local products and was not a food market as we had hoped.  We then walked through the old port area with its nice pedestrian streets and many restaurants.

We are so ready to embark on Vista tomorrow.  It will be a terrific month.

Peace and blessings,

Linda and Larry