Bienvenue a Montreal

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Sunday, October 10th, 2011

The next day Renata and I decided to go up the mountain to visit St. Joseph's Oratory, whereas Liane and Candy went to see the botanical gardens. I woke up early to take a shower and hopefully get an early start to go site seeing. However, my sister was fast asleep and I did not have the heart to wake her up. When she finally woke up we headed up the mountain to see the Oratory and it was freezing up on the mountain. My hands were going numb ;-).

The Oratory was beautiful; my second favourite church in Montreal. My favourite church is yet to come. The Oratory reminded me of Sacre Coeur in Paris and it provided a great view of Montreal from the top. This is the church that Brother Andre, who spent his life ministering to the poor, laid the foundation for. He performed a lot of miracles including making the lame walk. You can see all the canes of people hanging up in the Oratory after they left because they did not need them anymore. He was later canonized a saint a few days later in Rome (October 17th, 2010).

My sister and I wanted to explore Mount Royal more and maybe find a Montreal Bagel shop, but we had to meet up with the our cousins for 12:30 for lunch. We decided to meet them at the Botanical Gardens because my cell phone was dying and I didn't want to keep messaging back and forth in case it completely died on me. My sister and I had breakfast at this place called Van Houtens, where I had an amazing bagel (it was delicious). We messaged our cousins after the Oratory and realized that they just reached the botanical gardens and realized that they had to pay $16 to get in. (I guess they woke up pretty late). We said that we would meet them there in about 1 hour.

On our way to the botanical gardens, my sister and I stopped off to take a photography of the Olympic Stadium and of me on the podium, winning a gold medal (with no gold medals around my neck) 😞 . Our cousins especially liked the Chinese Gardens. I wish that I had the chance to explore the gardens, but there wasn't really any time and I would have liked to see it for more than 1 hour.

After we all met up we went to a pub nearby. Candy wanted to see the football game. She is a huge sports fan ;-). We are all in this fantasy football pool for kicks, because the only person in the pool who knows anything about football is Candy. She is also in a more serious football pool with the boys (my brothers).

After lunch we headed back to the hotel. Candy decided to stay at the hotel because she was not feeling well. Liane, Renata and I decided to wear more layers of clothing because it was freezing outside in the morning and we wanted to be prepared. We then headed of to Old Montreal, where there were cobblestone roads and horse drawn carriages.

Our first stop was Notre-Dame Basilica and I must say that it was my favourite church in Montreal ;-)
The rich interior gothic decoration and architecture, makes this the must visit place to see in Montreal.

After Notre-Dame Basilica we went to see yet another church in Old Montreal called Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, which was also quite lovely. As you can tell we saw a lot of churches in Montreal ;-) . I guess I got my religious dose for the week.

After exploring our last church stop, I promise, we headed off to Place Jacques Cartier, where there was a Rue de Artistes and street performers doing tricks. We had some delicious crepes at a nearby crepe restaurant. I had an apple cinnamon caramel crepe and my sister had a strawberry banana crepe. Yum ;-) I can feel the calories building on! We got a strawberry, nutella crepe for our sick cousin, Candy, but she did not end up eating it in the end. We walked by the pier for a bit and then headed back to the hotel where we had dinner nearby at a fancy burger place.

The next morning we headed straight home (no stopovers in Ottawa) :-( because our cousin, Candy (the driver) was not feeling well :-(. Oh well, nothing was open anyway on a Thanksgiving Monday.

So that was the end of our Montreal Trip. Churches, dancing, food and driving; until next time ;-)

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Photos

Flowers
Me trying to take one of those close up pictures of flowers