Montreal

I took a boring city tour (just riding around on the bus) and the most exciting thing that happened was that the guide killed a yellow jacket that stowed away on our bus. I don’t know what that bee was thinking, but its death was a mercy killing. Our guide spoke passable English and had a pretty strong French accent. The tour was about one hour too long and I think we passed by the same few buildings at least five or six times. I like hearing about the history and seeing the old buildings and sites, but please, don’t name every darn new skyscraper. At one point, I got to regale the passengers with my Pirate Story (see the post about cruising the Gulf of Aden). See Michael’s description below for what I saw.

Montreal is an old city, founded in 1642 although Indians and trappers were here long before that. The city is named for the “mountain” that is behind the city, thus Mount Royal became Montreal. The natives do not pronounce the “t.” Also, the mountain is nothing more than a large hill, standing 764 feet high (maybe that is the size of a molehill?). Anyway, they are proud of it. Montreal is located on an island and is Canada’s second largest city. It is the second largest French speaking city in the world and has been dubbed the “Paris of the North.”

Now, I could not get excited about the city from my very short and abbreviated visit. There was no charm or warmth to the city like there was in Quebec City. There are three parts to the city: the old, the new, and the underground. We saw the old and the new; we were not able to see the underground city which has 33 km of “streets.” This is important because the winters here are long and very harsh, with lots of snow and frosty cold weather.

Like Quebec City, there was a fortification wall built around the old city. Because so many wood homes caught fire, it was declared that all buildings within the wall had to be built of stone or brick. If you didn’t have the money to build one of these, you had to build your home outside the wall. The history goes like this: French came, British conquered, it became a part of Canada. Over 65% of the population here speaks French; there are a lot of immigrants from China, Greece and Portugal. Signs are in French; they manufacture Molson beer here (there is a huge brewery); and export lots of maple syrup to Japan (there are five types of maple trees, but only two give syrup).

Our guide did tell us one good story. Most early settlers were Catholic and they ate meat, especially in the winter. Since they were not allowed to eat meat on Fridays or during lent, it put a crimp in their meal planning. Someone approached the bishop and said there was a funny creature with a big flat tail that swims in the water. Could they eat this? Well, since it swims it must be OK, so they were able to eat beaver. What a stretch!

Michael:

I got to escort one last tour today through Montreal. It was called Montreal Old & New but we ran out of the time to see the new! We stopped first at the Place d’Armes to visit the majestic Notre-Dame Basilica, the second most beautiful church in North America. Let me tell you this is something to see. I saw a gorgeous basilica yesterday in Ste Anne de Beaupre, and this one made that one look like a country church! I won’t even try to describe it, other than to say I would hate to be the guy who has to dust it. By the way, this basilica is where Pavarotti recorded his famous Christmas concert.

We took about half an hour to walk through the downtown area so now I know there are plenty of McDonalds and Starbucks in Montreal; whew! We crossed the Concorde Bridge and our driver took a lap on the Montreal Grand Prix course, fortunately at a low rate of speed. We went next to Mt. Royal Park and Cemetery, where there are over one million stones, an amount equal to the current population of Montreal. The views from the summit were spectacular. We drove past St. Joseph’s Oratory where they hold mass for some 10,000 at a time. It is built high on a hill and church goers have the option of climbing the 256 or so steps either upright or on their knees.

I said we didn’t see anything new and that is because we ran out of time. Montreal is a big city but only half of it is visible. The other half is underground. They did this because the winters here are so severe (six to nine feet of snow each year), and the best way for people to get around is underground. Oh, one bit of trivia – by law, all signage in Montreal must be in French. A company can provide English on their sign as well, but the English letters must be no larger than 40% the size of the French letters. They have Language Police to control this!

This afternoon was spent packing. At least we don’t have a weight limit for each suitcase as we are flying United and Michael is a lifetime Executive Premiere member and we can just shove the stuff in anyway it fits. We hauled our big bulky winter coats for our one day visit in Nuuk, Greenland; I think we could have done without them. We smushed and smushed so they are packed. Tonight we will relax and try to get to bed early because we are off the ship at 8:30am to wing our way home.

I am so looking forward to seeing Deborah and Isabelle who are picking us up at the airport in Seattle.