We woke up and drove into Canada. We had some trouble at the border but got it resolved with minimal interruption, though we did learn that we did not have the proper identification to use the fast access lanes into Canada. That turned in to a bit of a fiasco but we made it. We then continued until we got to Montreal!
After checking in to our hotel, Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth (that had just a beautiful lobby), we learned there was a Jazz Festival going on all week just a few blocks from our hotel, so we obviously had to check that out!
Also, our hotel was sitting on top of a train station and an underground mall that sprawled throughout the city. You can read up on it if you’re interested but essentially the winters are so terrible that they built a large underground shopping/eating/transit region so folks can get through it. We could take an elevator down from the lobby and it would open up to this section of the city. It was pretty cool and reminded me a lot of the shopping areas between subway stations in Japan.
After exploring the lobby a bit, we set off in the direction of the jazz festival, hoping to catch some tunes or at least find a schedule.
There were street vendors and 8 – 10 stages with all sorts of different acts performing throughout the day. We caught a few concerts and they were all really good.
Also we saw one lucky lady’s name (well, possibly lucky) up in the clouds for an airplane proposal! I haven’t seen one of these in years, and I’m actually a little surprised they just let General Aviation folks fly that close to a crowded music festival, but I guess that’s how things work up in Canada, eh? Also, who in 1990 (assuming this lady is late 20s) was naming their children Marilou?
Walking back, we passed a building that was the headquarters of the Olympic committee when the city hosted them back in 1976. Most of the building was now office space but they kept part of it a museum and had a “torch” out front “burning” in the night.
Also, that Monday was Canada Day! There were a ton of people in the streets celebrating and we were able to see fireworks from our hotel room as it overlooked the water.
The next day we got up and had to go see that water. Montreal still has some section for port use, but most of the waterfront was tourism. They had a few museums right on the water and out front had a fun flag exhibit.
There was also a very nice Ferris Wheel which appeared to offer a fantastic view of the waterfront and also a good portion of the city.
So of course we ended up riding it!
And it did offer some pretty amazing views!
You can see much of downtown and the sprawl surrounding it from the view at the top of the wheel.
And also the waterfront area. The blue and white tent was a Cirque du Sole show that was in town (Alegría). We did not go see it though.
We continued down the pier until we got a decent view of a famous landmark – the Jacques Cartier bridge (named after the famous French explorer who claimed Canada for France). It spans the St. Lawrence River and connects the island of Montreal to the rest of Canada.
Just west of the northern end of the harbor is an area of the city that’s been preserved since the early 1800s. A lot of the buildings have original stone work and the streets are cobbled. It was quite a nice walking area and we took some good pictures.
There are also some early 20th century sky scrappers in the area. I didn’t get too much information about them but my assumption is they were built as the city expanded to the west after the turn of the century. That’s about the same time the bridge we saw earlier was built, I’ll bet there was a significant increase in population around then.
We continued walking back the way we came and ran into the #1 attraction in Montreal, the Notre-Dame Basilica, a Gothic-Revival style church dating back to the mid-17th century. The building went through several updates and revisions into what it is now, the last of which was completed in 1891. There’s plenty of photos of this online but we took a few that seemed nice.
As we continued on our walking tour (we walked a total of 59K steps, somewhere around 25 miles in 4 days…) we found a street decorated for the Pride festival. It was…like 20 blocks filled with colored streamers.
I forget exactly where we were heading, but we kept finding things that distracted us along the way. Montréal has loads and loads of tiny nooks and crannies where parks, festivals, food vendors, musicians, etc. are tucked away. It is absolutely a city to explore on foot (or bicycle).
Continuing on, we walked through an area with some neat homes, as well as a giant castle-looking building. Some of them had turret towers or other round rooms, all built from stone or brick. There was too much to show all of it but here are a few of our favorites.
Text above door reads “The Black Watch – Royal Highland Regiment”
We finally made our way back to the Jazz Festival (that was ongoing throughout the entire week! Imagine our luck!) and there was this cool street performing group. They were playing a lot of popular songs but with horns and marching drums instead of whatever they original music was. They had drawn QUITE the crowd. Erika mentioned that they were like “the Pied Piper” because as they took off down the street, the whole crowd would follow them, singing and dancing the whole way.
As the sun started to set we made our way to dinner. There are quite the number of food establishments nestled away throughout every area of the city. They don’t seem to have the normal zoning laws found in most American cities. We snagged a shot of the sunset dipping below Mount Royal (which we’ll visit in a bit).
And for dinner we found a small Izakaya (maybe 10 booths total). They were really good! They had really good beef tongue, which if you haven’t had it (and can get past the tough texture), is delicious. Erika didn’t like it.
We continued along home and saw that there was a Concordia up in Montréal, though it has no relation to our American alma matter. Founded in 1974 from the merger of Loyola and Sir George William Universities, it is one of the largest Canadian Universities today.
Almost back home, we could see the marquee of our hotel peeking above the Mary Queen of the World Cathedral, seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Montréal, where it has been since 1855 (though the current building wasn’t built until 1898).
I took a few interior shots of the cathedral as well.
It was hard to capture the sheer scale of the interior, but it was very lovely. Unlike the other church we visited, this one had a very “reverent” atmosphere and was home to patrons visiting at the close of their day. We tried to not take many photos and were very quiet walking around.
The next day we got up and decided to drive to Mount Royal. There’s a large park at the top as well as an observation area. The plan was to drive to the top and then park since it was about 2 miles away from our hotel. Well, driving took a lot, lot longer than expected and we didn’t find a very good parking spot. Oh well. What we DID find was a neighborhood of beautiful huge old homes that we looked at for a bit. We took quite a few pictures but I think this might be the best one. Read more it about it here.
There was a bargain home just down the road only asking $6MM, hah. This home abutted the park area proper so we hopping a fence and began what – we eventually discovered – was quite the climb to the top of Mount Royal.
We finally made it through the dozen or so landings and hundreds of steps to the top. What we found was an absolutely breathtaking view of Montréal as well as a delightful old chalet that had been converted into a museum and historical sight.
We stopped for our lunch on the steps of the building below, listening to local enthusiasts play the piano you can sort of see in the right side of the image.
Someone played the entirety of Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen and onlookers joined in singing. We did not however, largely due to the fact we were eating 😀
AS you can see, it was a beautiful building. As we were preparing to walk down the stairs to our car, we found this very pretty garden with these Dr. Seuss-looking plants and had to take a few pictures.
We immediately returned to the hotel and dropped the car off, deciding to never again drive in the city. Hah! We walked to a pub for dinner and then discovered that they had shuffleboard tables hidden upstairs. We had to have a few rounds (which we both won some and lost some…though some of us more than others :D) and sampled the local fare.
We also spent some time walking around the city and found many cool little areas. Here’s a fun picture of a building we saw while walking.
We found another cool spot to stop and have a snack, and this one was build in an old cellar of some sort of stable house that they had converted into a restaurant.
We had a delicious dinner at the hotel restaurant as well the last night we were there. It was very nice and had wonderful views of the surrounding city. We didn’t take any pictures of the inside but we did take a picture of this wonderful caprese salad with little avocado dollops.
Here’s a picture of our hotel room (the bed is a little messy), but you can see the nice artwork on the wall as well as the beautiful furnishings! Also below is a fun view of the downtown area we could see from our window.
With that, it was time to get back in the car and drive home. We crossed the border, again with minimal but some issue, and made it back to the airport. Luckily we had no connection or delay issues on the way home!
And back in Vegas! Thanks for reading, and as always, we’ll see you next time!