Montreal

Although I am happy to have visited Montreal it didn't take me long to realize that my favorite places on the trip were not the big, historic ones but the beautiful, smaller, less known and less crowded places.  We were very blessed that I selected the B &B that I did.  The location was perfect for the Metro and walking in town.  I had paid for a garage space for the two day for $9 per night.  Parking on a meter, if you can find a spot, can be as much as $6 per hour.  Although we soon found that our GPS did not work in Canada and we had no directions to the place I did have a map and Sherbrooke (the famous street we were off) and Laval (the street that we were on) were very well marked.  The metro station was only two blocks away.

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Our room was on the top floor with the stepped out window.  We paid a little more for our room so that we could have two rooms on the same floor since we were sharing a bath and wanted it to be with Lanny and Shirley.  It was well worth the $20.  It was very roomy and nice while there's was a bit cramped.  The stairs were steep and difficult with the bags.  We were grateful that we could leave the bigger ones locked in the garage. 
Our innkeeper was a very interesting overweight Jewish fellow who had visited Utah and criticized our pronunciation of Ephraim and Zion.  He told us that his church was the bank.  He lives with his partner (although we never met him).  He had opinions about everything from spices to places to visit in Utah.  He cooked a very good breakfast and added a unique flavor to our Montreal visit. 
Some of the other guests in our B&B in Providence told us about a market that we shouldn't miss so that is the first place that we took the Metro to on the first morning.  We were a bit sad that it was only vegetables, fruits, meats and flowers.  We were hoping it was full of fun things like the market in Montreal, Australia had been.  It was a fun place to see, however.

I took lots of other pictures but this gives you the idea of the beautiful display of the market.









We walked from the market into the Italian area of the city and had an expensive pizza.  I like ours better.
 It was interesting that even though Montreal is supposed to be a dual-language city we often could find nothing in English.  It is nothing like our need to have Spanish on everything. 

We then took the Metro down to the Place-Darmes. This square is framed by some of the finest buildings in Old Montréal, including its oldest bank, first skyscraper and Basilique Notre-Dame. This neo-gothic cathedral is the largest church north of Mexico and was modeled after Romes St Peters.

A little friend on the grounds of the Church.

Metro station, Lanny and Shirley and one of the magnificent buildings in the area.  (I'm still learning how to crop pictures on this new computer.)

Another church that we visited, and which I enjoyed even more, was the Oratorie St Joseph, Canada's Patron Saint.  It was built in honor of Jesus' father and was completed in 1960.  It was massive and beautiful and had a lovely Stations of the Cross walking garden.  

                                                      Lamb's Blood Fountain

                One of the sculptures in the Stations
                of the Cross Garden.







This photo doesn't do justice to the massiveness of this church.  It was amazing. 

We walked down Rue Sherbrooke in the second evening and saw the busy night life.  We splurged and went to McDonalds.  Our most elegant meal on the trip was a Chinese restaurant called 

L'Orchidee Chine.  The atmosphere and the food were outstanding and we were lucky enough to be treated by Lanny and Shirley as a gift for the work I did on organizing the trip.