Day 43 Montreal (Day one)

The day started with returning the car at the downtown rental office. Vince had checked the route on google maps but Daniel also gave directions. While driving in the tunnel beneath the city google said take the right exit but Daniel had said take the left exit. As Daniel's initial instructions were different to google and had got us where we needed to be we decided to follow his directions. Not a smart move. What was supposed to be a half hour trip ended up being three times as long. We ended up using both google and the Garmin to get us to our destination.

We were chatting to the girls at the car rental office enquiring about all the road works as we assumed that these are done in summer due to the winter snows. This was a correct assumption but there are more than normal at present due to Montreal celebrating 350 years of settlement in 2017.

We then started our walking tour of downtown and Old Montreal. We walked down two blocks and we were on St Catherine Street. This is the main street in the Montreal. We continued along this street until we came in line with Notre Dame Cathedral so turned down to visit this church. The Cathederal had some beautiful stained glass windows and pillars. It is incredible to consider how these building were constructed so long ago without the aid of the infrastructure available today.

From here we continued walking towards the river as that is the area known as Old Montreal. Once again this was an area with lots of work being done for next year's celebrations. The main street of this old area, Rue Saint Paul, is in the process of the old paving being ripped up and redone. It was last paved in 1966 so it has lasted a reasonable time with road traffic. It would make sense to remove cars and trucks from this road to prolong its life. Hopefully, they will consider this option before the repaving is completed.

In regard to the building and surrounds of the Old Montreal, we were expecting more like what we had seen in Old Quebec. Sadly, this was not the case. There are a number of cafes and restaurants and souvenir shops but otherwise normal businesses abound in the area. Hopefully they will consider this as well.

We walked up and down streets in the area and then along Old Montreal Port. Here we noticed that the cruise ship terminal is under renovation so we realised we would not be coming downtown to board our cruise.

We then headed back up town and found Van Houttes, a coffee chain in Quebec province, that would be equivalent to coffee club at home. The coffee was quite nice and it had free Wifi to boot (bonus!)

Continuing our walk, we started to rise as we headed for Parc Mont Royal and the lookout at the summit of the mountain. We maintained a steady pace not wanting to show off like some that were jogging up the hill or pedalling past on fancy bikes. It is a popular route as there were quite a few people out walking, jogging or bike riding.

The view at the top was lovely. In the courtyard observation area is an old upright piano and a young girl was playing some classical music. She was very talented and everyone was sitting back and listening to her and enjoying the afternoon. Like all good things, it ended too soon. Unfortunately, when she finished a dad and his toddler took up the instrument. The dad was terrible but the toddler had potential - possible we need to come back and listen to the toddler in 10+ years time.

Time for us to continue on our way to the large Cross that is illuminated at night by hundreds of lights strung over the cross.

Heading back down the mountain and into town we caught the metro and connecting bus back to our apartment.

Tonight's premiere show was Lethal Weapon (the TV series, last night's was Bull).