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<\/a><\/p>\nIt has lively public spaces. <\/p>\n
It has more bicycle density and use than any city I’ve seen outside of the Netherlands. The next time I hear some fat guy whine “Chicago shouldn’t waste tax money here on all this infrastructure for bikers who will ride only a few months in the summer anyway!” my response will be “um… Montreal?” <\/p>\n It has great live music. Well, theoretically, at least. There was a jazz club\/art space in the basement of the old building we stayed in that’s so cool it’s only open on Friday nights (we were there Saturday, boo hoo). The local music we did incongrulously see was a country band, The Firemen (excellent) and a rockabilly band, Emma Williams and the Ramblin Men (alright), playing at a bar we were planning on stopping in anyway. <\/p>\n It has a giant hill and huge forested park right in the middle of the city, just steps south of the lively Plateau district where we stayed, and just east of downtown where we walked through next. <\/p>\n It has a giant National Park-like building at the top of that hill, that prominently features squirrels. <\/p>\n It has a waterfront on the other side of that downtown. <\/p>\n It has construction projects everywhere.<\/i><\/p>\n But despite all the new, it has an old town that could have been plucked straight from a city in Europe. <\/p>\n It has Bixi, a bike share system that brought us back to our rental after 8 miles of walking around the city (but it’s surprising that the bikes have the same gearing as Chicago’s Divvy, given all the crazy hills in Montreal.) <\/p>\n It has a cool AirBNB rental they named The Tree Fort where we had the good sense to actually spend a couple hours relaxing on our “day off” after walking and riding all around the city and up and down mountains. <\/p>\n And finally, it had us, in both non-sexual senses of the phrase. <\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n