The Mighty St. Lawrence River

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Day 4: After our long day in Quebec City, we didn't get out in the town today until late morning. We wandered around, had lunch at an outdoor pizza place near the Old Town docks and Old Montreal. The table next to us ordered an XXXL pizza for the 4 of them. When it arrived, it was the largest pizza we have ever seen. We were amazed, the 4 of them ate almost all of it. We had been gawking at their pizza and sharing smiles now and then so, after they finished, they offered a gigantic slice to us. NIce! It was exactly like the pizzas you get in Rome. Extremely thin crust, not many toppings and crisp, crisp, crisp. What nice people to share their lunch. Turns out they are from Nebraska and Iowa and they were bused to Montreal from Quebec City last night as their ship, Holland America's Rotterdam, broke down yesterday.

We had some time to kill before our boat tour, so we wandered around the Vieux Port. Street vendors, musicians, food trucks...just a fun place with lots of energy. Hundreds of people out and about in the sun. Then...a surprising thing happened. While out on a dock which was quite empty, Jean happened to look down and saw a small piece of purple leather jammed between two boards. It had been walked on and who knows how long it had been there. Jean did ask at the Science Museum if there was anywhere to turn in something that was found. They said, if she found it in the museum, yes. But if was on the docks, there wasn't any one place for people to look for lost things. So... I guess Jean is the proud owner of a lovely bracelet. It turned out to be a little leather, Ferragamo bracelet. We feel badly for whoever lost it. At the Science Museum Jean noticed an IMAX...uh oh...she loves IMAX. And... today at 4:50 they are showing "SuperPower Dogs", in English. IMAX plus dogs!!! We bought tickets!

But... first a river cruise. It was 83 degrees today, the day before fall officially starts. Tons of people out enjoying the warm weather, before the deep winter they know is coming. To cool off and rest, we stopped in a cute little cafe in the Science Museum. After some time of snacking and people watching, we walk down 3 piers to the tour boat. The tour boat was quite large, lots of glass and mostly full of people from all over the world.

As we head out on the cruise we see Habitat 67, a model community and housing built for project for Expo 67. It looks like a bunch of containers put together haphazardly. It was conceived as a Master's Project in Architecture by Moshe Safeie. Jean loved them. Each has a place for a garden and nobody looks into anybody else's windows ;-) It is about a million dollars for 3 containers. Maybe not for us ;-) Our Bateau-Mouche goes under the St. Jean Cartier bridge, past the beautiful skyline of downtown Montreal, and the Six Flags theme park with tons of roller coasters. This time of year, it's only open on the week-ends. By the bridge was the Molson Brewery, the first brewery in Canada. It is still a major facility on the river, and the business continues to be owned by the founding family and are wealthy benefactors to Montreal. Next was the Clock Tower where immigrants from all over the world would first step foot in Canada. Sorta like our Ellis Island. When we reached the St. Lawrence River, we were stunned by the power of the current, we entered the swirling main river and saw the canal leading to the locks where commercial commerce travels on the way to/from the Great Lakes.

After the cruise we hoofed it down to the Science Museum to see SuperPower Dogs. It was wonderful and in 3D. It is about dogs who are trained to rescue people in really hazardous conditions...earthquakes, boat sinking’s, car wrecks and even as amazing assistance dogs. If you get a chance to see SuperPower Dogs, do, it was so heartwarming. By now it's 6pm and we're calling it a day ;-) So we walk back toward town and find our alley that leads us back to our hotel.

Tomorrow: History of Montreal

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