We like to travel a lot as a family. In fact, that was one of the requirements I had prior to getting married. Whoever I married had to have a sense of adventure and love to travel, which are certainly two characteristics of my husband. In any case, when one travels, you know you want to get through all of the obvious tourist sights that one generally has to see when visiting a new place, but after that it's up to you.
We tend to base a lot of our travel on food. We research restaurants that sound awesome and will plan entire trips around food destinations. It reminds me of our trip to Montreal. The trip was a pilgrimage of sorts to some of the amazing restaurants my husband had read about, and the rest of the trip was just a side point. Montreal is a city for food lovers. I would have written "foodies", but my husband hates that term for some reason. He thinks everyone is a foodie, but I disagree. While everyone would rather enjoy great tasting food, it isn't the requirement for some people. In my opinion, there are two kinds of people in the world....those who live to eat, versus those who eat to live. I'll let you guess where me and my husband stand on that one. But back to Montreal.... The main restaurant my husband was interested in was Joe Beef. He was hooked on watching "No Reservations" with Anthony Bourdain, and the restaurant had been a part of one of his episodes. However, we were unable to get reservations, so we settled on a different restaurant, Au Pied du Cochon, which is pretty amazing on it's own. I remember having the best foie gras I've ever had....that, and my husband ordering raw horse meat. Did I mention we are fairly adventurous eaters? If we ever created a bucket list it would probably be eating at the top restaurants in the world. It's a lofty goal, but makes for some amazing meals, and trips!
When travelling, I also like to research the quirky things found in each location city. One of the things I enjoy doing lately in each of the cities we visit is researching the Street Art. What was once considered just Graffiti has come a long way. In Los Angeles, we had a great time finding street art that I had researched...Banksy anyone? Unfortunately, some of them had been painted over, but it got us out and about in a unique way that wasn't just as tourists. It's almost like a scavenger hunt, which I think are a lot of fun.
Here in Portland, there are some pretty amazing street artists. Evidently, they are given permission to create art on the walls of certain buildings, and now there is even a tour of street art. I haven't gone on that, and instead have decided to do my own tour. This week has shaped up to be beautiful and sunny, albeit cold, so the kids and I are on street art quests.
Our first stop was right near our house. There's a cool mural of Prince. Evidently the artist painted it right after Prince died, as a tribute to him. We've been driving by it since day one, but haven't stopped to take a picture of it. This one, like several others, is difficult to get a good picture of because there usually are cars parked in front of it. After that, we stayed mostly on Alberta Street, which has a fun creative vibe, full of great restaurants and quirky shops. Once we started looking, I was amazed to realize how often I have driven by some of these amazing murals and never noticed them. I love that my children are now more aware and will point out artwork as we travel around the city! I'm hoping we can hit a few of the more iconic ones before we leave, but either way, I really enjoy our little street art excursions!
