Another excellent tour the girls and I did while in Montreal was go on a bike tour around the city. It was not too long or strenuous, and very informative and fun! We booked the tour through Fitz & Follwell. Highly recommend them! Our guide loved his job, and it showed! He was able to make the entire group excited about all the sites around the city.
After everyone was gathered, we all had to be fitted for helmets and bikes.
Once we were all fitted properly – we were off!! We started of in a beautiful park full of green grass and trees. 
This is one of the 4 main Universities in Montreal, which are some of the best in the world. This city attracts MANY International students because the tuition prices are not astronomical (like they are in the US) and the high level of education their institutions provide. For example – the average tuition costs for McGill University is $13,500 US Dollars, and it’s ranked 24th in the world!!! 
Once we made it through the park, we moved on into the heart of the city.
We left the downtown area…
And headed into the older, more residential parts of Montreal.
Very colorful houses to differential each individual home.
And in the more affluent areas – the individual houses are quite different from each other. These are 3 very distinct homes, each with their own architectural style.
Another thing about their architecture is their outside staircases. To create more space within the walls of the houses, they moved the staircases to the upper floors to the outside of the building. So if you lived on the second floor, you didn’t go into an entry way or hallway to get to your front door. This can be a little treacherous during the snowy winter months!!
If you look, you can see a yellow door for the bottom floor. Then up the stairs are the entryways for the second and 3rd floors.
Our guide took us to some back alley yards that were very popular. When very populated cities are crowded with people, and everyone lives in apartment/condo style homes – green space comes at a premium. So some neighborhood realized that they could utilize the space in the back of their homes and neighborhoods to create wonderful green spaces and gardens. It’s where people of the neighborhood can gather, kids can play, and neighbors can socialize.
I loved these flowers – called Bleeding Heart Flowers.
Sadly, our tour came to an end. The girls and I were starving after biking around the city for hours. So we decided to go get some traditional Canadian cuisine and try some Poutine and a Smoked Meat Sandwich. Everything was quite good!! It was a great way to end the day!
From Here to There - A Move Across an Ocean 