Mon-Train-All. Day Four.

Montréal, Québec - Oranges. Yes, oranges. And lots of 'em, too. Of course, we could have used the vitamin C to help make us feel better this weekend. This morning, my face felt like an acupuncture session gone awry, my sinuses like the crumbling ruins of Rome.

Sniffling away is not the most pleasant manner in which to spend eight hours on a train, which we did last night, getting back just before two in the morning. While the rain had mostly let up, it was still a grey day in la belle province. We did a lot of walking again, making it up to the Jean Talon Market, apparently the largest of its kind in North America ("Aha," he says to himself: "I knew there had to be another reason for so many pictures of fruit. That segue wasn't quite complete!")

Actually, I found the market to be patently underwhelming. Sure, there were many stalls of fruit, some particularly rancid cheese shops and the meat available at the charchuteries was no doubt top-notch. Nonetheless, there weren't really any bakeries (no Montréal-style bagels?) and frankly, no restaurants. No artisans, either. Those are just things I've come to expect from an excursion to the market.

It was, however, a veritable cornucopia of colour and the produce looked great (which really is the point, isn't it?), but from a tourist's perspective, once you've seen one pile of oranges, you've seen enough. Except in this case, I guess -- I liked how differently the merchants displayed their produce. In the end, the walk was salvaged by a couple of pains au chocolat and a panini avec porc et brie. Really, it all comes down to the food, doesn't it?

Speaking of which...