Traveling with kids: Our trip to Montreal

I have been meaning to write about our last exploring adventure about three weeks ago: our trip to Montreal

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We had initially planned to take a way overdue camping trip for a long time now, however Emilio had been teething and waking up way too often and crying in the middle of the night. So, let's say that  that was my line for going on an adventure with an infant, since going to the back of the woods in the dark with bears roaming around with a screaming baby wasn't my ideal of a fun camping trip. When Emilio finally got a bit better we thought we'd finally go camping... And then we all fell sick with a cold... So that was pretty much it for us planning to go camping, and we decided kind of as a spur of the moment thing to pack our stuff and go to Montreal.

As I always say, no planning and zero expectations ALWAYS makes for great adventures in my view. We literally booked our suite at the Marriott Residence Inn the night before, packed our bags with as little as possible, grabbed our kids and Nanna, and off we went.

Usually we like to plan car trip around nap time so that the kids can sleep in the car. However this time we were only going for two days and therefore had to leave as early as possible, so that we could  have as much time as possible there. Montreal is only about 2 hours away from Ottawa by car, so in the end, we left the house at about 9.30 a.m.

The great  thing about our hotel is that is included breakfast and it had a kitchen with a microwave, stove, fridge, etc. so we literally packed a bag with our groceries from the house to make sure we had food for meals and snacks at all times. The kids napped in the car even though it wasn't nap time yet. I didn't factor this into our planning, but it worked out great, because by the time we got to Montreal they were completely rested and ready to go. We unpacked our things, rested a little, and off we went to Old Montreal.

 

 

First, we looked for a place to sit down and have some lunch. Then we just walked and walked and walked. We had Paulo in the stroller or walking and I had Emilio in the sling the whole time. It was great because we we able to cover a large area, give Paulo a chance to walk around but also rest when he got tired.

 

 

Towards 4 or 5 p.m. Paulo was beginning to look tired so we headed back to the hotel. We rested there for a bit. Paulo was too excited to nap in the hotel room, but he at least lied down in bed for a while and was able to wind down a bit. We could have rested some more, but we were all hungry so we head out to a restaurant for dinner.

The restaurant we went to was super stylish and big, the ambiance was great and the best of all: it was family friendly. Nothing like a bunch of crayons and paper to keep a toddler from freaking out while waiting for food. They also had high chairs so Emilio was happily seated while we ate our own food. Honestly, my kids are CHAMPS when we go out to eat. We do not do this often at all, especially since we had kids, but when we do go out our kids just LOVE IT and as long as it is a place where banging noises or the occasional loud scream goes undetected, we do awesome.

The first night we went back to the hotel at about 8.30 and didn't manage to be in bed until about 9.30. I was so worried about how night time was going to go, as we only found a room with a king size bed and a sofa bed for Nanna. I was terrified about how the whole sleeping routine was going to go. Turns out, we were all so exhausted from walking, that as soon as the lights went off , we all switched off as well until the next morning at 6.30 a.m. It was awesome.

The next morning we got up and immediately headed downstairs for breakfast that was served from 6.30 a.m. To give Nanna a chance to sleep in. We we the first ones there so we had plently of seats and food to choose from.  Nanna joined us a while after. It was still early by the time we finished breakfast, so we decided to go to Old Downtown again.

One great thing about having kids is that you get to go to places that are normally crowded at insanely early times, so you get to see beautiful places in their lighting and empty glory. This is what happened to us that morning, when we ended up heading downtown for the second time around 9 a.m. on a Sunday. We had the entire all town for ourselves, parking was not an issue at all, and we walked the old Montreal streets completely empty -- perfect for picture taking. We visited the Notre Dame Cathedral and Emilio napped for a whole hour in this beautiful, quiet, warm and dark place. We then got to have a proper visit, sitting down to admire its beauty and soaking in the peace and quiet, plus send out a prayer to thank God for the blessing of being there with my beautiful family.

 

 

 

We then went and sat down for a hot chocolate and coffee, to let the kids sit down and rest for a bit, and then marched towards the car. It was towards1 p.m. and I knew Paulo was exhausted after running around and all the novelty. Once we got in the car, Paulo was out in 5 minutes.

 

It was our plan to head to the Botanical Gardens for the afternoon. However, the last thing I wanted was to have to wake Paulo up once we got there. So we decided to drive around Mont Royal Park and stop at the lookout there to give him some more time to sleep in the car. So we drove to the Park and once there, I stayed in the car while Rob took Emilio and
Nanna to walk around a bit in the park and to the lookout. Then we drove around the cemetery and finally headed towards the Botanical Gardens.

 

 

 
 

Finally, we spent the rest of the day at the Botanical Gardens. The entry was quite expensive - $30 pp for non Quebec residents, but the gardens are supposed to be second only to London's Kew gardens, so we decided to go for it. The Gardens are HUGE and it took us quite a while to go from one exhibit to another, so we had to think ahead what we wanted to see and just stick with that. We decided we wanted to see the Japanese Pavilion and the Insectarium, which were both awesome. It took us pretty much all afternoon to visit these, and we got practically kicked out of the Insectarium when it closed at 8 p.m. and a thunderstorm began -- perfect timing!!

 

 

 

 

 

Once we got in the car we drove back home, and stopped somewhere along the highway for dinner at a McDonalds. It sure got late and we didn't plan to eat that late, but at least we had packed tons of snacks so we could manage our hunger.

 

Our trip worked out perfectly and I think some of the keys were:

 

- pack lots and lots and lots more snacks (it is aaaall about the snacks whenever you see a meltdown looming in the horizon)

 

- It is hard to plan for nap time when you are on the go and with limited time. But if you just can't work in a nap in to your schedule, plan some low key activity like a sit down snack or just getting in the stroller.

 

- Weather permitting, plan lots of outdoor activities. My kids just handled the whole trip like troopers, and I think it was because most of what we did was outdoors.

 

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