“O Canada, we stand on guard for thee. God keep our land glorious and free!” From the national anthem of Canada
Carol writes: By July in Florida, we are severely engulfed in the oppressive heat and humidity of a typical Florida summer. For the past five summers, we have managed the summer doldrums pretty well by getting a very early start on any outdoor activities. This year we chose a new tactic—flying north for about 10 days visiting Canada, where we hoped to find a more tolerable climate. We selected Montreal and Québec City for our summer getaway.
MONTREAL
We had a pretty easy American Airlines itinerary to Montreal from Jacksonville, with only one stop in Atlanta. By now, we weren’t quite so intimidated by Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport. We have learned the layout and that we must budget plenty of time to change planes there… because it really is huge!
On landing in Montreal, we waited in the Uber line for about half an hour. Then it was a quick 30-minute drive into the city to our Airbnb, the Sonder Apollon, which was located in the heart of Old Town Montreal in the old Board of Trade building.
This historic building has been completely gutted inside to create half a dozen floors of modern apartments, many of them rentals like ours.
We were fairly pleased with our accommodations—an adequate kitchen,
a separate bedroom created by a glass wall with curtains to partition off the living room for nighttime use,
and a very nice bathroom with a shower.
A plus for me was our own private washer and dryer!
The sixth floor rooftop terrace had an awesome view of downtown Montreal.
The next day we decided to take a long walk through Old Town Montreal. Just a short distance away was the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal,
which is renowned for its marvelous moody blue lighting and prayer-inspiring interior design. The color blue is often associated with the Virgin Mary, so this lighting choice seemed fitting indeed. The ceiling was painted deep midnight blue and was studded with gold stars.
The metal radiators outside the confessionals seemed like they would be very welcome in the frigid deep-freeze of a Montreal winter.
Our furthest walking point from Old Town was the Old Port of Montreal along the St Lawrence River.
The Grand Quai was a tourist hotspot with a variety of attractions including a bungee jump from a crane situated over the St Lawrence River—not if you paid me—
a zip-line, and a fun ferris wheel which provided great views of the downtown and riverfront.
The top of the ferris wheel was the best vantage point in the city. To me, winter ice skating in the frozen shallow basin at the foot of the ferris wheel would be awesome.
Just a short comment on Montreal cuisine… We found it to be much to our liking, having a wide variety of menu items for any world traveler. Throughout Old Town, we found plenty of our preferred healthy vegetarian/pescatarian cafes with pleasant, quirky ambience.
Did we try poutine, a popular Canadian dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with hot brown gravy? NO.
Montreal weather cooperated with us and did not serve up a single rainy day; however, temperatures remained unseasonably hot and humid in the low to mid-80s, and although that was tolerable for us, we sensed that many Canadians weren’t happy with that. In any case, we decided to embark on a long day by hopping on the Metro and heading to Montreal Olympic Park,
site of the 1976 Summer Olympics.
One of the most anticipated events of the Montreal games was the men’s decathlon featuring Bruce Jenner in competition with Russia’s Mykola Avilov, the gold medal winner of the 1972 games. Of course, the results are now in the history books—this time Jenner bested Avilov, won the gold and set a new world record. It is well known that Jenner’s subsequent life story became a whole lot more complicated.
We have found that botanical gardens in northern climates can be spectacular in the summer. And so it was at the Montreal Botanical Gardens. Surprisingly, we didn’t see those awesome displays of annuals until the end of our visit…
Rather, this botanical garden consisted of several gardens that were organized around themes—First Nation, Rose Garden, Alpine Garden, Japanese Garden, etc. Simply lovely…
After three days of managing long walks in the hot sun, we decided an easy day in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts would be a welcome change of pace. We discovered several of our favorites among the Western European grand masters:
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| Auguste Renoir Young Girl with a Hat |
Monet, with another depiction of his gardens at Giverny,
another “Thinker” from Rodin,
and a Joshua Reynolds portrait.
Many Canadian and North American artists were represented. This Adrian Hébert painting from the 1940s held my interest because of its eye-appealing 1940s portrayal of downtown Montreal nightlife.
Of course, there was a classic Picasso.
It had been a busy week thus far. We saved our last day for some shopping in Montreal’s famed Underground City, a pedestrian mall consisting of 20 miles of tunnels.
It was confusing and time consuming to find the underground entrances and then navigate our way down. The tunnels were a hopeless maze for newcomers. I would say we were “less than impressed” with the variety of shops, and most of them sold little of interest for us. The food court, however, was exceptional! It was easy to imagine the attraction of this giant underground mall during the harsh snowy days of a Canadian winter.
For five days Montreal captured our interest with a variety of historical, cultural and urban attractions. Thus far, Montreal exemplified the most authentic European ambience we had encountered on the North American continent. But we hadn’t been to Québec City yet, where we discovered that great city took “Europe in Canada” to a whole new level.
“Canada is like a loft apartment over a really great party.” Robin Williams
Carol Galus
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