Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Saturday after biking I wanted to take the metro back. To my surprise this was a free fare weekend, something we never have in Toronto.
Followers of my blog will know I'm a transit enthusiast and explore metro systems in various cities. I'd already explored the Montreal metro in 2006 so wasnt spending time this time in the metro
Sunday morning for my flight back to the airport I was going to take the airport bus. It starts at Berri-UQAM downtown but as I was a few stops to the west I wanted to try taking the bus from here to see if it makes a difference.
The metro was free again as part of the free fare weekend. I know the airport bus was $10 from my last trip.
The airport bus comes to the interchange station Lionel Groux. I had scouted this yesterday when I was walking to Atwater market. Unfortunately the bus was already packed from downtown, maybe because of the free weekend. The bus was also free today saving me $10. I remember from downtown it was about 45 mins but from here it was only 20 mins to the airport.
The flights were leaving every hour and as I was quite early I asked if they can change flights but they said it was full. I also would have lost my window seat so I just waited the extra hour for my flight.
It was clear blue skies on take off and you appreciate the boating culture from the air. As montreal is a serious of islands and rivers the boating culture is much stronger than Toronto which just was one lake coastline.
The flight went north to Ottawa and then down to Toronto. Normally it descends onto the island airport runway from the east but this time it circled round and came from the west. Unfortunately due to the plane design I had a very poor view due to the engines and should have sat two more rows back.
This was my first time in Montreal in the summer for at least 10 years. It was fun trying different things on this trip and hopefully I can explore more the next time my company sends me back
2025-05-22