We joined a bus tour of Montreal city at 8:30am and it turned out to be a four hour trip. The driver/guide was Jean, a retired French teacher. He told us he would show us 200 places and give us a test at the end. He dropped us near the Notre Dame Cathedral, just around the corner from our hotel, and gave us 40 minutes to pay $5 each and admire the cathedral from the inside.
For the second time we were told that Celine Dion was married there recently. The power of celebrity. It was quite dark inside because most surfaces were non-reflective, but it was magnificent in its impact.
There were carvings of individual saints in the end of each pew, three large stained-glass skylights in the domed ceiling and a very ornate pulpit. The organ was being tuned while we walked around and we hoped to hear a recital when the tuning was over, but no luck there.
The rear chapel was burnt out some years ago and was replaced with lovely woodwork inside.
We drove across one of the eight bridges across the St Lawrence and turned into the Formula 1 track which had seen 300 km/hr racing in June and we covered a short strip at 20.
There was an Expo in the 1960s which attracted the greatest number of visitors to Montreal in a single year. The geodesic dome built by America was still there, but a welder ignited the plastic covering some time after and now it is bare.
We saw the Olympic Arena from 1976 and the Velodrome which was designed to look like a helmet. The building is now used as a Biodome, reproducing ecosystems from various countries.
We stopped for a toilet break at the entrance to the large Botanical Gardens which specialised in insects. On Sundays they serve lunch from the excess ones.
We passed the one million bed cemetery, which was next to the McGill University Medical School, and stopped at the Church of St Joseph, which featured a huge photo of Canada's first saint. Some people believe that if they climb the 99 steps up to the entrance on their knees, a prayer will be answered. We saw four people doing this pilgrimage.
Our final stop was at the hilltop lookout for an "overview" before the term test.
Jean asked us the name of the first church he had pointed out and the answer was "Marie Reine du Monde". We walked two kilometres back to our hotel, stopping for a light lunch on the way.
At 4pm we braved the sun again and shopped around the Old Town. The Inuit and Amerindian art and craft impressed us greatly. We found a kit with 120 pieces for building a log cabin, so naturally we could not resist buying that. The flower boxes here feature our old friend asparagus fern.
The buskers were out in force and we enjoyed their music. We bought a wrap and apple pie from A&W and rated it good. Then we found a Tim Horton's, bought a smoothie and rated it poor. Our boutique hotels in Quebec and Montreal have been located in the Old Town and made it easy for us to see the craft shops.
No comments:
Post a Comment