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Bonjour, cava?
We arrived safely in Toronto late last Saturday evening, after a particularly horrible domestic flight from San Francisco (who would have thought USA to Canada was domestic?), and after being collected by our friendly host, settled in for the night in our lovely new hostel, ready for an exploration of Toronto, and then Niagara Falls in a day's time. Canada is our last country before we head home, and although the neighbours next door looked slightly like they were running a drug's den and were nasty bits of work (it turned out they were and they are), we were excited about being here for a fresh adventure.
Unfortunately overnight James was struck down with a nasty flu-like virus which manifested itself in aches, pains, a headache and a raging fever, leaving him bed bound the next day. After several recoveries, subsequent relapses, and careful nursing by Joanna for two days, Joanna then started to panic and declared that James 'must have Dengue Fever', (of course this was not announced outloud to James, who was sure he was dying already in typical boy illness style). Dengue fever is a mosquito borne virus, of which there was a
large outbreak in the Cook islands, not usually fatal, but no fun nontheless. Of course James didn't have it, but Joanna put 2 and 2 together and made six, and fretted enough for the both of us for two days straight, (as James was to weak to fret)! During this time Niagara got the push, but we kept our fingers crossed for Montreal. Alas, by day four James seemed cured, and our adventure could begin again... cue the music... (we are developing a soundtrack to our travels, like they have in films, it helps hours pass on planes, trains and automobiles. If only we could have a montage of 'the best bits' to accompany!).
After assessing James' miraculous recovery, and tentatively testing him with toast, we set off on the train to Montreal on Wednesday, a nice journey on a Japanese style train which had more foot room than your average aircraft, and better views. Montreal is a beautiful city and impressed us as soon as we left it's train station that evening. As we wound through the maze-like streets in a taxi cab heading for our hostel, we noticed French and Italian restaurants on every corner, with twinkling
Old Montreal Building
Many of the buildings in Montreal had these French style copper roofs, even people's houses! fairy lights, couples strolling with their dogs, and open-fronted bars spilling out onto the streets on a warm and hazy evening. With the Mont Royal hillside park glowing on the hill in the far distance, Montreal was clearly the most European city we had visited since Melbourne in Australia and we fell in love with it there and then. For those of you wondering why travellers like us frequent taxi cabs, the answer is 'we don't'! Another striking aspect of Montreal that evening was the fact that we arrived in the middle of city-wide industrial action, therefore the whole bus and underground transit system was on strike! Any excuse!
After a warm but much appreciated night's sleep in our hostel we set off the next day to the Downtown area of Montreal, undeterred by the fact that town was about 40 minutes walk away, there was no public transport, and the temperature was reaching around 32c. The walk to town amazed us, as it was like being in Paris, with three storey blocks of flats on either side of the tree-lined roads, each with spiralling and jutting iron staircases leading from the pavement outside to the higher doorways. The
area we were staying was the artistic and bohemian Mont Royal Plateau area, the 'in' area of the city (apparently), and we fell in love with about ten such flats! We later learned that the reason for this peculiar arrangement of accomodations goes back to the 19th century when the city fathers decided that in order to beautify the city, all tenements should be faced by a small patch of lawn. Slightly perturbed by the fact that this left them less space to built their house on, and live in, residents simply removed the staircases from their homes and put them outside! Voila! An excellent plan you would think, except that in the winter Montreal can reach -20c which makes for a lot of snow shovelling and broken ankles! No such luck for us, it was 32c and rising as we hit downtown...
Downtown Montreal is basically like any other North American city - grid-like, with wide and long streets, and the hub of business, banking and shopping. Yet Montreal seemed to have more culture and style than other cities, and for every glass tower block there was an aging, centuries-old department store, a museum, or outdoor arts centre,
Cafes in Old Montreal
The domed building is home to a sort of modern market, with boutique clothes shops and art galleries and the city centre university topped this off by having fantastic green and lush grounds, and looking much like St Andrews or Edinburgh university when we wandered around. We explored Downtown for two days straight and still didn't see everything, infact we only managed a paltry 20 minute stroll in the cities 29km (!) of underground shopping avenues which link the main buildings and the locals call 'the underground city'. Apparently some people can leave their flat and shop, eat and go to the theatre without ever going above ground or putting a coat on - a useful thing to have when it's -20c outside or even when it's +30c! In a particular moment of weakness given the rising heat we confess to watching Spiderman 3 in the solace of the air-con cinema instead of exploring the underground city - once we had found the English speaking cinema that is!
The other striking feature about Montreal is the language. As you would expect in the French dominated Quebec region, all signs and labels are in French, however the ease with which people switch between French and English baffled us. Even locals switch between French and English in conversations so
sometimes you can't quite tell what the people next to you are speaking. We tried to speak French but everyone just spoke English to us, so we must be rubbish!
For our final two days we treated our weary legs to a hotel nearer town and explored Old Montreal which nestles between the Downtown area and the old port area - it is of course, the original town and this shows in everything we saw there. Various churches, market halls, government buildings, all built in beautiful neo-classical and gothic styles are found on every corner of Old Montreal and this was definitely our favourite part of the city. Street names like 'Rue Notre Dame' and cafes bearing French flags and equally French menus gave the area a really cosmopolitan feel, and although Old Montreal was quite touristy, nothing seemed tacky or over-the-top or detracted from the peace and beauty of the area. As well as sunbathing in the modern gardens down on the port we also marvelled at the selections at a 'bonbon et chocolat' festival, and escaped being run over by horse and traps (I did say it was bit touristy!). On our last day the cool winds
The Old City
The main square in the old part of Montreal is alive with both locals and tourists, relaxing with a beer over their lunch, it felt very european! swept into town carrying some rain and so we simply joined the crowds in town for 'Free Musuem Day'. Montreal has a rich heritage, and history of conflict (both miltary and social) therefore a lot of museums (about 35), and we like museums, but we settled for a small people's history museum which retold the story of French and British settlement in Quebec, and the modern art gallery which was showing some great Bruce Nauman neon signs which made us smile. A great day to round off a great time in Montreal.
We both loved Montreal, which is probably clear, and can't wait to go back sometime soon, as it is one of the few places where we barely dipped our toes into the range of thigs to do. A surprisingly large city of nearly 3.5 million people, we also found that the unique French/English/Canadian dynamic made it an interesting and engaging place to stay... and if all this doesn't impress you then maybe this will - John Lennon performed his famous 'bed-in' and wrote 'Give Peace a Chance' in the Fairmont Elizabeth Hotel. What more can you want from a city - architecture, langauge, culture and The Beatles!!
Government Building
We think this was the Quebec Parlianment building, but we can't quite remember. We couldn't help but think it must be pretty strange to work in...
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Salut!
Ils sont de retour - sains et saufs!