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My wife and I were going to visit our friend in Montreal  for a long time and this long weekend we decided to do it.

I found a guy to hitchhike  with over the internet – we paid for his gas and he gave us a ride to Montreal and back.

The first two days we spent in a small town called Piedmont, Quebec  north from Montreal, near Mont Tremblant  Ski Resort. We stopped at a cozy Finnish-style chalet built more than 30 years ago. This was the first morning I woke up with the sounds of birds after 10 months living in Toronto . The weather was sunny and we headed to Mont Tremblant National Park by car. We missed the right turn and made 45 km more in wrong direction.

 We hadn't seen a lot of people, just cyclists. Our friend scared us with story: every year about 15 people get lost in the park never to be found. The park is huge and is equal to the urban area of Montreal – if someone got lost in the woods, nobody would be able to find him or her. We turned the car back and in an hour or so we found a park entrance.

Our friend likes hiking and jogging so he took us for a walk to the top of nearest mountain. The path was only 2km in length but we were so tired what we stopped admiring the true Canadian forest after first 20 minutes. Half of hour later when we got to the top of the mountain, we forgot about our tiredness and were stunned by the beautiful view of the Laurentides  Riviera. The sight of the mountains, hills, forest, rivers, lakes and small towns was just amazing!!! We didn't want to go back downhill.

That evening we had a great dinner in the chalet and had some coffee and cakes in a traditional French Pâtisserie . That night we felt as if we were not longer in North America but somewhere in France or Switzerland.

The next day, we walked around the town of Piedmont using the bicycle paths which run from Montreal. The road is 60km in length and it usually takes my friend about 6 hours to get back home to Montreal. Though, he usually makes a lot of stops to eat fresh and wild blueberries, since most fruits and vegetables today are bought in grocery stores, have been modified and are tasteless. One day my wife and I would definitely like to ride the bikes along this path from Piedmont to Montreal.The last day of the long weekend we spent in Montreal. We watched the “Grand Canyon” 3D movie, visited BIODOME and walked a lot in old city or Vieux Montreal and the river's quay. In the evening, it began to rain and we hurried up to find a warm place to try some famous Montreal smoked meat. Our friend brought us to some nice restaurant being run for several generations by one family. The dinner was amazing and feeling 100% fulfilled, we left the city.

We enjoyed our long weekend a lot and we are planning to go back to Montreal this summer as there are still a lot of places and events we would like to visit like Jazz Festival, or even go to Ottawa  or Quebec City .