24 - Montreal

Monday, Aug. 7^th – This morning we left our campground south of Quebec and drove west to Montreal.  We are still in Quebec Provence, so we still have to use our imagination in deciphering the traffic signs.    We made it without any problems and checked into our campground, Montreal South KOA, right around lunch time as it was only a 170 mile drive.  The campground is some ways from Montreal, but the Hop On/Hop Off tour operator runs a shuttle bus from the campground to the city.

In 1611, on an island in the St. Lawrence River, Champlain cleared a tract of land which he named “Place Royale,” however he didn’t stay.  Then in 1642, Paul de Chomedey, Sieur de Maisonneuve and Jeanne Mance founded Ville-Marie on this same island and this settlement eventually became Montreal.  There were many struggles with the native population but finally in 1701, 30 indigenous nations signed a peace treaty – The Great Peace of Montreal – with the governor of New France putting an end to the Franco-Amerindian wars.  Then in 1760, Montreal fell into the hands of the British and the French government left Canada.

Tuesday, Aug. 8^th – This morning we caught the shuttle into the city and boarded our Hop On/Hop Off bus as seen here.

There are a lot of ethnic communities in Montreal and here is the gate to China Town and a photo down one of the streets.

In its early days, Montreal had a lot of churches in the downtown area, as that is where most folks lived.  Today that is not the case and so a lot of churches have closed due to low attendance.  Here is an example of one where they built a very large hospital to replace a church but they thought it had a very nice steeple.  So, they kept just the steeple and built the hospital around it.

Montreal also has an LGBT district known as Le Village and here it is.  The colored balls strung over the street match the colors of the rainbow flag.

When this area was discovered in 1535, Jacques Cartier named the mountain just to the north of the area Mount Royal or, in French, Mont Real.  That then morphed into the name of the city Montreal.  Our tour bus drove us to the top of Mont Real so we could see the Basilica of St. Joseph’s Oratory.  Here are a couple of photos of the Oratory.

This basilica is Canada's largest church and its huge dome reaches 320 feet and is second only in height to St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  In 1904, Saint André Bessette, C.S.C, a humble porter at Notre-Dame College in Côte-des-Neiges, Quebec, began the  construction of a small chapel.  Soon the growing congregation made it too small and a larger church was built in 1917.  The construction of the current basilica was begun in 1924 and completed in 1967.  Saint Bessette, better known as Brother Andre is credited with thousands of miracles

Most of the crest of the mountain is Mount Royal Park which was inaugurated in 1876 and was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of NY’s Central Park.  One of the landmarks on top of the mountain is a 98 foot tall cross that was erected in 1924 to commemorate January 6, 1643 when Masonneuve, one of Montreal’s founders kept his promise to carry a wooden cross to the summit if the young colony survived flooding.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to see the cross.

Before Mount Royal was developed, it was farmland and here is one of the few remaining farmhouses.

Also on top of Mount Royal are several cemeteries and here is the entrance to the largest.

We stopped briefly at an overlook so we could see the city down below and here are some photos of the city.

One of the things we could see was the Olympic Center from when Montreal hosted the 1976 Summer Olympics.  The inclined tower, unfortunately, was not finished in time for the Olympics and during construction had to be redesigned as it was not build-able as originally designed.  Here is what it looked like from Mount Royal.

The next area we toured thru was the University Center.  The main road thru the University complex is lined with flags representing all the countries that students come from.

We then finished up the tour and had lunch at a nearby deli named Nickels which serves Smoked Beef which is Montreal’s version of corned beef.  It was very good.  Across the street from the restaurant there was a nice park with several monuments in it.  This one was dedicated to Robert Burns, the Scottish poet who lived from 1759 to 1796.

And this one to commemorate the Canadian soldiers who had died in the South African Boer wars.

Across the street was this monument to Bishop Ignace Bourget, 1799-1885, who was the second bishop of Montreal from 1840 to 1876 and was responsible for the construction of the current cathedral.

We next visited the two Catholic basilicas in downtown Montreal.  This first one was the Basilica Cathedral Marie-Reine-Du-Monde, Mary Queen of the World.  It is a scaled replica of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  Construction began in 1875 to replace the Saint-Jacques Cathedral which had burned down in 1852 but construction wasn't completed until 1894.  Its name at that times was St. James Cathedral.  The name was changed to Mary, Queen of the World in 1995.  Here are exterior and interior photos.

Here is a better photo of the main altar.

Here are some of the side altars.

And the chapel that is directly behind the main altar.

And here is the tomb of Bishop Bourget.

And the rear of the church and the organ.

We then headed over to the second basilica but first came across this monument to Mainsonneuve, one of the founders of Montreal.

This next church was truly impressive, not so much on the exterior but the interior was out of this world beautiful.  Here is the façade of Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal.

A masterpiece of Gothic Revival architecture, this basilica was built between 1824 and 1829.  The magnificent interior of carved wood is something special.  Paintings, sculptures and stained-glass windows illustrate biblical passages as well as 350 years of parish history.  Here is a photo of the interior.

Here is a closer look at the main altar.

Rather then depicting religious themes, the stained-glass windows of the basilica commemorate significant historical moments in Montreal's history.  Quebec artist Jean-Baptiste Lagacé designed the images, and the windows were executed at the workshops of Francis Chigot at Limoges, France.  This stained-glass window commemorates Mainsonneuve carrying the cross to the top of Mount Royal in 1643.

This one commemorates the founding of Ville-Marie in 1642.

This next two commemorate other events.  Our guide told us what the events were but I've forgotten what they were.  They still look neat though.

Here is the rear of the church and the organ.  The organ is a Casavant made in 1891 with over 7,000 pipes ranging in size from 32 feet to 1/4 inch.

And the two sides.

The pulpit was carved out of solid black walnut.

And one of the side altars.

There was also this arrangement with an old Crucifix, a painting of Jesus falling down while carrying his cross and an icon of Our Mother of Perpetual Help along the side of the Church.

And here is a shot of the ceiling.

As we left the church I took this last photo from the side as we walked down the street.

We had a little bit of a hike to get back to the visitor’s center where we were to catch our shuttle back to the campground.  Along the was we passed this fountain.

And in front of the office of the local Olympic committee was this monument to the Olympic torch.

We then caught the shuttle back to our campground.

Wednesday, Aug. 9^th – This morning we headed into Montreal again on the shuttle and our plan for today was to visit the Pointe-à-Callière Museum.  Pointe-à-Callière is the location where Champlain’s Place Royale was located and where the later Ville-Marie was established.  So, this location is the birthplace of Montreal.  Back in the 16^th and 17^th centuries this was an island close to the north shore of the St. Lawrence River with only a small stream, the St. Pierre River, separating in from the mainland.  Over the years the St. Pierre was first bridged and then buried so there is no longer an island.  Today, this museum sits on top of the ruins of the early settlement and some of the original building can be found in the basement of the museum.

Here you can see some of the original walls of the original customs house and one of the support columns.

The customs house had a tower that itself was built on top of earlier ruins.  The base of the tower rested on some old walls and pilings that you can see have rotted away.

The base also used inverted arches for support as you can see here.

Unfortunately, due to the pilings deteriorating the tower started leaning and had to be taken down.  As mentioned early the St. Pierre River ended up being buried, here you can see the tunnels through which it flowed.

Here you can see additional photos of the old building walls.

And here you can see an old sewer line that originally connected from a now gone building to the buried St. Pierre River.

After completing our tour of this museum, we headed out to find lunch but in this photo you can see the a plaza and the new customs building that are on top of the area we had just been exploring.

We got back on the Hop On/Hop Off bus and based on the recommendation of the tour guide took it to the next stop, Le Villages, where a lot of good restaurants were located.  He was correct and we had a lot of choices for lunch.  One of the things I’ve been wanting to try is a uniquely Canadian dish called poutine.  It’s a plate of French fries covered with cheese curds and gravy.  So, I ordered a hamburger steak with grilled onions and upgraded the standard French Fries to poutine.  Made for an interesting lunch.  The poutine was nothing exceptional and I don’t think I would bother with them again but I had to try them as least once.  Here is a photo of the street where we had lunch.

After this we did some exploring on the way back to catch our shuttle.  We took the subway but got off one stop early and walked thru the underground shopping areas.  In the winter, it gets pretty brutal outside, so, Montreal has developed a lot of underground shopping areas and tunnels that allow you to go from building to building without having to go outside.  We eventually made it back to our shuttle and returned to our campground.

Thursday, Aug. 10^th – Today is laundry day.  Weather forecast wasn’t very good and our tickets on the Hop On/Hop Off shuttle were only good for two days so we stayed in the campground today and got our clothes cleaned up.

Tomorrow, we leave for Toronto.