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Published: June 14th 2017
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Nelsons Column
For some reason they're is a statue of the guy that defeated Napolian in Montreal square ??
Today was our first full day in Montreal, we went down for breakfast, and although the food was nice, we had to use paper plates and cups !!!!! Honestly even in hostels we are trusted to use crockery ???
I had arranged for us to be shown around the local district by Montreal Greeters, there was the main guide, an apprentice Greeter and a photographe, who wanted to use our visit to put on the Greeters website ???. Well you know how I hate to be the centre of attention, but I thought it's for a good cause ? So what the hell !!
So, off we set 1 guy and 4 women, and had such a good time a 2 hour tour ended up being 4, we all got on so well !!! We visited one of the local residental areaa and saw some beautiful houses. They were all different designs and different types of bricks, but they were all terraced ...... so they either have to be pinned together somehow, or they are just cemented together ...... quite odd. They also of Montreal appartments is to have the stairs to the upper floors on the outside of
the house, it's so they don't have waste heating keeping a staircase heated during the winters often which can sometimes be as low as -30 degrees. However in the words of John Cleese .... "let me state the bleedin obvious" ..... it might be a tad dangerous with ice and snow on iron steps !!!!
We visited the Olympic stadium from 1976, which was a innovative piece of designs as it had a huge roof that came off during hot weather, great at the time, but it's got hundreds of holes in the roof now, and bits kept on falling on people, so for obvious reasons it's not used much now !!!
We visited a big church that our guide used to visit, and he got talking to the priest, who was one of his friends. The priest told us all about his organ, the biggest in North America apparently ?. It really WAS huge, he was so proud of it. And if I'm honest I was blown away when he played it ...... a truly beautiful sound, I could imagine brides walking down the aisle to it's magnificent sound ?
There were numerous statues, monuments and
fountains scattered around the city, the Quebecans do love a good statue, they've even got one that's a smaller version of Nelsons column, which is a bit odd as I thought Napolian, was defeated by Nelson, I'll have to recheck my French history ?
Anyway it was time to say au revoir to our tour guides and we went to a tea shop, and I mean A TEA SHOP, that's all it sold ....... no sandwiches, no cake, not even a rich tea finger ???? nuffin !!! Very weird ?
So Connie and I went into the Old Town, and went to the Notre Dames Basillica, it's in a lovely big square with lots of statues, and fountain. Unfortunately it was closed to visitors as it was about to start mass ....... so yes we did the mass !!! the choir was amazing, the priest sang so loud he really was like the lead singer at a concert. Sadly we couldn't take any photos, but it did make me gasp when I walked in ...... really really beautitul, I lit a candle for my dad.
Then we found a place I'd seen on trip advisor as the
best ice cream parlour in the city, well what were to do ...... it would have been rude not to, so we went in. It's also a maple syrup information centre, where you have a lesson on how maple syrup is harvested and made, with tasting of all the different types, it's like going to a wine tasting, but more sweet and sticky ? . Oh yeah and the ice cream was amazing ????
The evening was spent walking around the town following a History of Montreal event that had films using light projections on walls of buildings, that were brilliant, you listen to the story using an app. Very arty and clever, I loved it ???.
As it was Grand Prix weekend it was very busy and we saw a very sporty car outside a hotel that was surrounded by ropes , so I I presume it was part of the Race somehow, anyway got a photo !!!
Tomorrow is my choice of things to do, so it's a hop on hop off bus ride in the morning ..........
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