East Coast Cruising - Montreal

September brought a cruise to the East Coast for Annette and I. We started in New York, visited two cities in Maine, then sailed over the International Boundary into Canada and visited several cities in the Maritime region. The cruise ended in Quebec City and we ended our holidays after spending time in Montreal.

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Montreal was our last stop on our East Coast adventure. We took the train from Quebec City to Montreal as it was a new type of transportation for us. Mostly we have flown or rented a car and driven between locales - traveling by rail was one more new experience for us.

Via runs a regular service between the cities and the four hour ride was an easy way to watch the scenery go by and not have to worry about driving. It didn't hurt that we went through several bouts of rain and we were secure in our coach seats having a nap while some one else did the driving.

Montreal is the second largest city in Canada, and like many cities it sprawls over the landscape. Our hotel was out in the suburbs to north, but the Metro station one block away made the downtown and tourist areas easily accessible.

Our first stop was Old Montreal near the waterfront where just about all cities have their oldest neighbourhoods. The French explorer Jacques Cartier was the first European to visit the area on October 2 1535, but it wasn't until 1642 that Fort Ville-Marie (Montreal's original name) was built that the area became a solid colony.
If you know your Canadian history, many of the names like Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, and Paul Chomedy de Maisonneuve stir up memories of your old Social Studies  lessons from high school. Standing in the in the real geographic locations from those school lessons bring's the history to life. 
      

The architecture of the city is old but subtly so, not like the obvious aged buildings in Quebec City. In all fairness to Montreal, if we have visited Montreal first and _then_ Quebec City we probably would have been more impressed with Montreal's heritage. As it was, visiting Montreal second downplayed the city's beauty and caused our group to be under whelmed by the city.
Here and there the older parts of the city shone through, but it was disappointing to see that much of the older buildings had been replaced by newer buildings as the city grew.

Still, the history was there to see if you took the time to walk around and sight see with open eyes.
This nondescript plaque told a story of one of the first gathering places in Montreal when the city was still young. More than likely the square was much larger before the street intruded but I can still imagine people 350 years ago meeting and discussing the events of the day, or haggle over local politics which never seems to go out of style.

The Notre-Dame Basilica and the fronting Place d'Armes Square was one of the major tourist draws in the city and we seen more tourists here than anywhere else. Those damn tourists are everywhere !  :)
Sad to say we passed up the opportunity to tour the church as there was a line up and to be honest, we had already seen enough churches on this East Coast tour.
Just a day or two before we had been in the Basilica of St-Anne-de-Beaupre on the outskirts of Quebec City, so seeing one more basilica got moved down the list.

We also toured Chinatown and were surprised to see that the area mainly comprised of 3-4 blocks of pedestrian-turned streets. I'm sure the area spread out in all directions to some extent, but it seemed like a very contained space. In our home town of Vancouver, Canada, the Chinatown extends outwards for blocks in all directions. Vancouver has the second largest Chinatown in North America, after San Francisco, so it was a bit of a surprise to see such a small part of the city dedicated as an Asian nighbourhood..

However, we also know the bakers in any Chinatown are first rate and we hopped into one of the local bakeries for a warm pork bun for lunch and a cute Angry Bird pastry as a decadent dessert.

On Day 2 or our Montreal exploring we ventured further afield and took the Metro to the prestigious area of Mont-Royal. This is west of downtown Montreal but at one time was one of the wealthy suburbs of young Montreal. The park pictured above is a nice expanse of greenery in an expensive part of the city, but you have to wonder why this green belt was not developed years ago.

A Historical placard advises that there was an exhibition grounds and a horse racing track here in the late 1800s. Seems like the city kept the historical land as a park rather than sell off the land. Good on them !

Mont-Royal is still a desired area of the city to live in but it looks like time is starting to take hold of the neighbourhood. For such a treasured part of the city, one that I have heard of for many years, the infrastructure of the area is suffering and takes away from the charm of the community. Sidewalks with big chunks missing making it a hazard to walk along, and streets that require TLC to once again become appealing to residents and tourists were evidence of a part of the city that needs more attention to live up to it's prestige.

On the plus side, many store windows boasted views like this, so it was easy to overlook the slow decay of the area. Except if you were walking and eating and twisted your ankle in one of those sidewalk pot holes. Grrrrr

Our last visit was to Montreal Olympic Park built for the 1976 Summer Olympics. 
The park is smaller than I thought it would be but it still held a surprising number of stadiums designed for specific venues.

While many of the venues are closed and are only open for specific events, we still wanted to visit the park to see what it was like. One of the things I wanted to do was ascend the Observation Tower which provided a spectacular view of Metro Montreal. While the weather did not look bad, just slightly overcast, the admissions personnel advised us that there was fog cover over much of Montreal, including the downtown core. That meant even if we had paid for the fare to go up the tower, we wouldn't see anything. So .. sadly, we crossed that off our bucket list of things to do.

Also on our to-see list was the Biodome located in the Olympic Park. In the Biodome they have recreated 4 ecosystems found in North America. But alas, the Biodome was closed for renovations. not to re-open until late 2019.
We ran out of places to visit at the Olympic Park, still we were glad we took the time to come and visit the area as we had all watched the 1976 Summer Games on TV and cheered for our own Canadian teams. It was a bit of history relived for us.

This is the last picture of our East Coast Adventure - catching the Metro under the Olympic Village to head back to our hotel.
Tomorrow we would be up an some ungodly hour and on our way to the airport to hop on a plane and head back home to Vancouver.

This was an 18 day trip for us and while it seemed long, the time went fast and we packed a lot of travel and a lot of sight seeing into those 18 days.
We started in New York, hopped a cruise ship and visited Bar Harbor in Maine, Portland in Maine, then crossed over into Canadian waters and visited St. John, New Brunswick, then Halifax, Sydney, Charlottetown, and ended our sea voyage in Quebec City.
A train ride to Montreal brought us to our last city on the itinerary.

Except for New York, which Ken and Linda had visited previously, this was new territory for us and I think we all enjoyed the easy pace of the trip. A few hectic days in New York, then a relaxing 11 day cruise with one city per day, then a brief spurt in Montreal at the end was a good way to stretch out the vacation.

For me, the takeaway was a chance to see and experience a lot of the name places which had only been in Social Study and geography books when we talked about the early days of North America and in particular Canada. 
The West Coast of Canada is the youngest part of Canada, it was good to visit the older provinces where much of Canada's history resides.

Thanks for coming along on our East Coast Adventure, more adventures to come I'm sure !

The complete set of Montreal pictures can be seen here on my Flickr web site.
Do pay the web site a visit, all my complete sets of this and previous adventures reside there    

East Coast Cruising - Quebec City

September brought a cruise to the East Coast for Annette and I. We started in New York, visited two cities in Maine, then sailed over the International Boundary into Canada and visited several cities in the Maritime region. The cruise ended in Quebec City and we ended our holidays after spending time in Montreal.

Quebec City is one of the gems of Canada. In the old section of town located by the St. Lawrence River many of the old buildings are still standing. These buildings date back 200 - 350 years and are built in the European style. This lends an aura of Old Europe to the Lower and Upper Town sections.

Standing on the bluff above the river, Chateau Frontenac opened its doors in 1893 and has commanded the scene ever since.
Built by Canadian Pacific Railway as one of their destination resort hotels for the rich and famous, she retains her majestic look to this day.

As CPR built the railway across Canada they were awarded huge land grants as incentive to build the railway. 
On the prime land they constructed mega hotels and marketed the resorts to the rich adventurer whom loved discovering the "rougher" side of the world. The elite class could travel from a "chateau" in Toronto, to Montreal, to Banff National Park in Alberta to Victoria on thew West Coast,  enjoying the scenery while ensconced in the luxurious train cars as you travelled between Grand Hotels.
Ahh, there's nothing like being rich.  

Quebec City was the last port of call for our cruise but in a bit of a rare move the cruise line had us booked for the night on the ship and we were to disembark the next day. 
This allowed us two full days to tour the historic Lower Town and Upper Town, as well as visit the the Quebec Citadel. a functioning Canadian military fort.

Right across the street from our ship was Lower Town, so we didn't have far to go to start our tourist thing.
Samuel de Champlain founded the city in 1608 as a fortified city surrounded by fortress walls. de Champlain was an accomplished individual. Known as the Father of New France, to his credit he was an explorer, a cartographer, a drafts man, a soldier, a geographer, an ethnologist, a diplomat and a chronicler. He explored and settled the Quebec area,as well as charted the Great Lakes.

As I mentioned earlier, Quebec has done a fantastic job of keeping their stock of heritage buildings, and the future generations are rewarded by the forefather's foresight. In the picture above is the foundation and location of the oldest know building. While the building itself was torn down many years ago, the location is one of the early hubs of the Quebec.
           

All of the tourists shops are located in Lower Town, while Upper Town holds the restaurants, hotels, Chateau Frontenac and The Quebec Citadel 

We made the rounds of the shops and then opted to take the set of stairs that leads from one level to another. I wanted to try the funicular for a couple of bucks, but NOHHH, someone said we had to walk up the stairs.  

This was our hotel and indicative of the old buildings that still permeate the top of the bluff that holds Upper Town.

We walked around the edge of the city and came across the outer wall of the fortress city beyond which we could see the modern city complete with office towers crowned with radio and TV antennae.
We use the wall as a turn around point and meandered back through the city stopping enjoy the scents coming from the restaurant doors. 
We spent the day just winding our way through side streets and back alleys enjoying the Europe flavour of it all.
Before long it was time to point our way back to the ship to have our own wonderful meal

The next morning was a bit more chaotic as it was time to disembark from the boat and catch a cab to our hotel. Although the distance was not overly far, carting suitcases, overnight cases, backpacks, and assorted other packs was not high on the list of things I wanted to do.

It was late morning by the time we got to our hotel room and dropped off the bags in the storage area. After that, Annette and I wandered down the street and found a small cafe tucked under the corner wall of the Chateau Frontenac. The late breakfast was wonderful and inexpensive for the location, so we made a date to come back again tomorrow.

In the afternoon Annette and I explored the Quebec Citadel. The citadel is star shaped to be able to protect itself from any angle, and it is buried into the ground, so there is very little for the enemy to shoot at. Consequently obtaining pictures was a bit harder to do. There are some surface buildings of which I used my phone to capture pictures, as my camera battery had died, but they are not as good as I would have hoped for, so ... sorry, no pictures.

Turning our attention to the Grand Dame of the hotelier world, the Chateau Frontenac has built a wide boardwalk along the top of the bluff for their guests to "stroll" and be seen by each other, and by the paparazzi of the day.   

It also afforded a Grand view of our ship and really puts into perspective the size of the ship. The Adventure Of The Seas is the one in front, it is one of Royal Caribbean's mid-size ships. Samuel de Champlain's ships had nothing on modern ocean going vessels !

Our day trip for this port of call took us out of town to Montmorrency Falls and to The Basilica of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre

Do you know the difference between a church and a basilica? Neither did I until it was explained. A Basilica is a church with certain privileges conferred by the Pope. In modern terms it is a Vatican approved place of pilgrimage. Hence the royal name of a Basilica.

To be honest, coming from the West Coast I have seen plenty of waterfalls, and after touring Europe several times, a church has been ticked off the must-see box many times, so no cavalcade of pictures of the basilica here.

Back in town we spent our last morning wandering around the Chateau Frontenac lobbies and the inner art store and the fancy gift store. Many beautiful articles of clothing could be purchased in the gift store, and many expensive pieces of modern art could be purchased in the art store.
I opted to be a big spender myself and paid $3.00 for a bottle of water. Hey, I was on Holidays!

By noontime we had caught a taxi down to the train station and were waiting for our 12.30 PM train to take us on our last leg of our journey.
The bustling metropolis of Montreal awaited us, complete with rides on the Metro and a visit to Montreal Olympic Park, built for the 1976 Summer Olympics.

As you may have expected, I posted only a few pictures on this page - the complete set can be found here on my Flickr web site.
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