St. Michel Park
Address: Corner of Laurier Ave. and St. Dominique St.
Parking: Meter parking on nearby streets
Bathrooms: None visible. Try a nearby café?

New excuse for hitting Montreal’s chic Laurier Ave. for breakfast with the kids? St. Michel Park.

You know those weekend mornings when you can’t face short-order cook duty? When you need and deserve to have breakfast served to you? Well, this park provides the perfect side-order or dessert activity for the kids. Laurier has several breakfast/brunch options, including Toi, Moi, Café, Eggspectations and Pâtisserie de Gascogne and La Boîte Gourmande. (Find more Plateau-area breakfast spots on Montreal Brunch Review).

This urban children’s oasis is an all-in-one, super modern playground with a huge water play area on the corner of Laurier Ave. and St. Dominique St. The playground is geared to kids about age 2.5 or 3 and up, because it’s got lots of funky climbing and balance apparatus, plus big kid swings. One of the main attractions here is a spinning cylinder that you can run on while holding onto side rails. The other nice feature is an artificial hill (like the one they have at the Insectarium’s Buzzground), which are fun for kids of all ages to run and roll down.

The water-play area has lots of room for running through gentle fountains and jets. Next to the park is a soccer field, and behind it is a sand pit with beach-style umbrellas. Trees sprinkled through the park offer lots of shade, and there are several benches and some mini picnic tables. The perfect place for formerly-perhaps-hip parents to reminisce about the good old days and discuss whether or not they’re too old to pull off tattoos.

More Guided Tours of Montreal parks.