Montreal
Jeudi, 17 Mai: Port St Francis
Today was driving from Quebec City, along the south bank of the St Lawrence. We did stop at the Parc des Chutes Montmorency. It is quite the spectacular Falls, apparently second only to Niagara in Canada. The visitor reception area was pretty off-putting, with poor signage and a lot of construction. It is also pretty commercialized, with a gondola and souvenir shop. There was a gate house that wanted to charge us $8.50 to enter what should be a public park, but fortunately it was closed so we breezed right in. There is a stairway from bottom to top, which might be interesting, but 74 year old knees probably couldn't handle it! This photo doesn't do it justice because of perspective, but you really just want to look at me anyway.
Friday, May 19:
About 3 hours driving this morning, again along the coastal road, with a nice little waterfront stopover in Sorel. It is a good sized town with lots of heavy industry such as shipbuilding, oil refining, and grain shipping. But it did still have this lovely little waterside park.
Shortly after coffee we had to stop at this little wayside for a loo break. Pat went first and then I had to....
Arrived at the campground in Longueui noonish. We've stayed here before... it is pretty basic, but inexpensive, and there is a passenger ferry directly from here to Old Port Montreal. Very convenient!
We did head over for the afternoon and strolled the Old Port region and part of downtown. We can't help but think of our grandparents arriving in Montreal more than 100 years ago. Bill's paternal grandparents arrived about 1901 and had all four children born here, departing for Vancouver about 1915. Maternal grandparents would have arrived about the same time, but headed westward more immediately. Both sets of Pat's grandparents would have arrived in Montreal in the early 1920s, and came out west pretty directly.
This is a photo of a 1901 depiction of the main square, and then one as it was today.
And some more of Montreal...
And some sculptures that caught our attention...
Back to the campsite by 7:15, then a little bike ride along this waterside park. Tomorrow we plan to take our bikes into the city for a ride up to the St Laurent district and McGill University campus.
Saturday, May20:
Took our bikes over to Montreal this morning, with the goal of the Rue St Laurent area. Montreal now has a very good bike lane network, and we really didn't have to ride on any main streets without separated lanes.
Our goal was the famous Schwartz's smoked meats, partly in honour of my great uncle, Sam Coorsch, who had his own smoked meat business in Montreal in the mid 20th C.
We did spot Leonard Cohen on the Rue St Laurent and persuaded him to join us for a photo.
Schwartz's is really a jam packed little hole in the wall "greasy spoon" kind of atmosphere, and tan part of St Laurent is getting pretty run down, but it is still hugely popular. We got in early, about 11:30am. It was already full so we had to take counter bar seats. That was actually OK because we got to watch the prepping. We of course had the basic smoked meat sandwich,... 2 semi toasted bread slices packed thick with the smoked meat. Really was good! (Don't tell Pat I used this photo!)
We then peddled on northward another 6 or 7 kilometres to the Jean Talon Market. This was quite a surprise, a huge farmers market with dozens and dozens of booths selling mostly farm products, very fresh looking despite the season, as well as flowers and very appealing pastry shops and baked goods.
The ride back was quite a bit easier, as we were further from Mount Royal. The route took us through some of the iconic Montreal streets with their early 20th C townhouses with their stone fronts and external staircases. Quite a good ride altogether, and probably about 20 kilometres.
We had to have a beer of course to reward ourselves, upon return to the Old Port, then the ferry back to Longueil.
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