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| Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal |
When you catch the 5:25 AM train from Quebec City to Montreal it guarantees that you'll have a full day in the "City of Saints". Montreal earned this nickname because so many of the downtown streets carry names such as St. Paul, St. Elizabeth, St. Catherine, etc. Many of the people the streets were named after might have been quite saintly in their deeds, but as it turns out you could earn a street named after you back in the early days of Montreal if you were wealthy. Money may not get you into heaven, but it could get a street named after you in Montreal.
Our hotel (Hotel Place D'Armes) is in the "old" part of the city and was just a short walk from the train station. We're just a block away from the Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal and about a half mile away from the waterfront area along the Port of Montreal. As we often do, we used Hotwire to book both this hotel and our upcoming hotel in Toronto.
Our room wasn't ready when we arrived a little before 9:00. With the early arrival there's a good chance whoever had the room the night before us was still asleep! The hotel stored our bags and offered plenty of suggestions, not only to keep us busy for the day, but for several days.
Due to close proximity our first stop was the Notre Dame Basilica. Not being very well versed in the Catholic church I had to do a little research on the difference between a cathedral and a basilica. A cathedral is the home church for the bishop or archbishop of a diocese. A basilica is designated by the pope because of it's spiritual, historical and/or architectural significance. It was declared a Basilica in 1982 by Pope John Paul II.
By comparison to many of the cathedrals/basilicas of Europe the Notre Dame Basilica is a youngster.
The main construction of the building was completed by 1829. It was another fifty years before the interior was completed. The exterior is quite nice, but it does nothing to prepare you for what's inside.
Even though Beth had told me about it, it is something that has to be seen to be appreciated. It's brightly decorated with practically every color you can imagine, a complete contrast to the churches of Europe. As we stood in the back looking forward my first thought was simply, wow!
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| The pipe organ was completed in 1891 and contains 7,000 pipes |
One other thing about the basilica is that it receives over 11 million visitors per year. The current admission fee is eight dollars per adult. There is a discounted fee for children ($5) and children under 6 are free. I'm not sure of the breakdown of adults to children but they're doing pretty well before they even pass around the offering plate or play a game of BINGO.
The port area of Montreal has been developed nicely with a combination of kiosks, foodtrucks, a huge obstacle/challenge course and zipline, and greenspace, all of which were busy on a sunny summer day. The very nice front desk clerk at the hotel recommended a restaurant in the Place Jacques-Cartier area, Jardin Nelson, which was very good. She had also recommended a pastry shop, Maison Christian Faure, for a mid-morning snack, which was equally good.
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| Happiness is finding the recommended pastry shop! |
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| A chocolate and an almond croissant. I shared some with Beth! |
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| Jardin Nelson Restaurant It has a huge patio outback that has live music |
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| That's a zipliner in the upper left corner. The obstacle/challenge course and Bonsecours Market is in the background. |
We spent several hours roaming through the old city and port area, enjoying many of the numerous benches where we could take in the sites and sounds of the mix of tourists and locals. We also enjoyed several of the buskers (street musicians) performing throughout the area. In order to perform at one of the designated spots, which has a small stage and speakers set up and ready to go, you must participate in a drawing that is held nightly. Approved buskers (those with ID cards) names are drawn randomly for times and locations for the next day. We really enjoyed a young man named Nicholas Cangiano who according to his business card is a "Multi-Instrumentalist Solo Musician". He was very talented and put a unique spin on some classic songs by artists such as Fleetwood Mac and Lou Reed. You can check him out on YouTube if you're interested.
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| Nicholas Cangiano with an appreciative audience in Place Jacques Cartier |
One thing we've noticed about "cities up north" is that they really appreciate their summer days. With an average high temperature of 25 in January, Montreal is certainly no exception. Right now the city is full of outdoor cafes, parades, gardens and festivals. The festival that caught our attention the most and where we finished off our day was the Poutine (Poo-teen) Festival which was being held along the waterfront. For the uninitiated, Poutine is a Canadian dish whose origins are unknown, although my theory is it was probably developed in an apartment somewhere after a long night of partying way too hard. The basic ingredients of Poutine are French fries, cheese curds and gravy. The Poutine Festival, which could also be considered a cardiologist dream, offered numerous variations including bbq, Chinese, Italian, Seafood and more. We opted for the bbq and chose the pulled pork as our topping. It was certainly a tasty and unique combination of flavors but probably not something that we'll make a regular part of our diet!
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| It wasn't just any old Poutinefest…….it was La Grand Poutinefest! |
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| I have a stressed look because I was going to have to make a decision on what type of Poutine to order in just a minute or two..... |
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| ………..you can never go wrong with Pulled Pork Poutine, although it doesn't make for a great picture! |
