Marcher dans la vieille ville

The title means Walking Through Old Town. Today we saw all of Old Montreal enjoying the European vibe and definitely the food. 

We started at the nearby Place D'Armes, one of the principal squares of the city.  The centerpiece is the Basilique Notre Dame which is adjacent to the oldest building in the city, the Seminaire de St. Sulpice.  It also has some lovely early skyscrapers.  The duo pictured side by side below are the Edifice New York Life (left) built in 1888 with a wonderful clock tower and a technological wonder for the day an elevator and on the right is the Edifice Aldred built in 1931 with features reminiscent of the Empire State Building.

Basilique Notre Dame

First Skyscrapers

Oldest Building: Seminaire de St. Sulpice

Notre Dame Basilica is stunningly beautiful.  The pictures do not do it justice.  Unfortunately there are so many tourists visiting that it's hard to retain its reverence and the church is a little over commercialized.

Altar

Confessional

Infant of Prague

Stained Glass Skylight

Organ Pipes

We then visited Pointe A Calliere, a museum of history and archeology where we learned about the history of Montreal and we visited their special exhibition on the Queens of Egypt.  We were fascinated by a presentation they did on mummification.

Say hello to my mummy

Look what's an artifact now - rotary phones

Original foundations of early buildings

Fortifications

An aqueduct

Modavie

Dave's croquettes

We took a break from the heat for lunch at Modavie where we enjoyed fresh salads with salmon and an entree before doing more sightseeing.  In the afternoon, we strolled Rue St. Paul and Place Jacques Cartier.  We saw their City Hall which is similar in design to Philadelphia City Hall and we took a tour of Chateau Ramsey which was the home of Quebec's governors for a period of time.  There is a small mention of it being occupied by le armie de estates unit as well.

Rue St. Paul

Place Jacques Cartier

Monument to Nelson

Hotel de Ville (CIty Hall)

Chateau Ramsey

Apple Trees trained to grow along a wall

We visited the Bonsecours Market and the adjacent church of Notre Dame de Bonsecours.  This church was not as ornate as the others we've seen, but it has the body of a saint, Sr. Marguerite Bourgeoys, the first female saint of Canada.  She was the founder of the Congregation of Notre Dame de Montreal.

Bonsecours Market

We took a stroll in the Vieux Port area which is now an entertainment some shops as well.














Time to eat again!  We went back to Place Jacquest Cartier to eat at Jardin Nelson.  The restaurant is in front of and in the yard of one of the oldest buildings in town.    They are known for their drinks and for their crepes which we both thoroughly enjoyed.  There was live music as well.

Jardin Nelson

The Fourth Up North

Happy 4th of July America.!

We're spending the day in Old Montreal, Quebec which dates back to New France. 

Wonderful architecture, including preserved colonial mansions such as the Chateau Ramezay, cobble-stoned streets and horse-drawn carriages add to the area's charm and elegance. The old town's riverbank, taken up by the Old Port, is surrounded by a variety of museums and attractions. 

The oldest area of Montreal is known, not surprisingly, as Old Montreal or Vieux-Montreal in French. This historic center was once walled and still boasts delightful cobbled stones from the 17th – 19th centuries and the Old Montreal Port on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River. In 1964, the government of Quebec declared Old Montreal a historic district and in recent years, the district has been expanded slightly to incorporate several other streets. The area is considered a major tourist attraction and includes many of Montreal’s most visited institutions, including the Bonsecours Market, the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, Montreal City Hall, the Chateau Ramezay, the Notre-Dame Basilica, the Saint-Sulpice Seminary and Canada’s oldest skyscraper, the New York Life Building, dating back to 1888.  Old Montreal actually has one of the largest concentrations of historical homes and museums.

Place de Arms

Place d'Armes, the veritable heart of the city, offers a striking historical panorama. Here all the periods of Montréal's past are gathered in one place, around a monument dedicated to the city's founders. This section features the oldest standing building in Montréal, the huge church of the city's mother parish, the head office of the country's oldest bank, the city's first skyscraper... and the generations of skyscrapers that followed.

The New York Life building, with its eight stories served by an elevator and its clock tower, was Montréal's first skyscraper. 


Basilique Notre Dame de Montreal

The beautiful Gothic Revival style church built in 1829 and completed over decades is our first stop.  The interior of the church is highly decorated.  Its vaults are colored deep blue with golden stars and the rest of the sanctuary is decorated in blues, azures, reds, purple, silver and gold.  There are hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and statues.  The stained glass depicts the city's religious history.  Pope John Paul II declared the church a minor basilica during his visit in 1982.




Pointe-à-Callière Museum

Pointe-à-Callière Museum is a museum of archaeology and history in Old Montreal. It was founded in 1992 as part of celebrations to mark Montreal's 350th birthday. The museum has collections of artifacts from the First Nations of the Montreal region that illustrate how various cultures coexisted and interacted, and how the French and British regimes influenced the history of this territory over the years.

A special exhibit on the Queens of Egypt will be there while we visit.


Hotel de Ville



Montréal City Hall or Hotel de Ville has a more turbulent history than its peaceful façade suggests. The building went up between 1872 and 1878, and survived a severe fire in 1922. And it was from this balcony that French President General de Gaulle uttered his famous "Vive le Québec libre!" during a state visit in 1967.  The architecture is Second Empire like Philadelphia's city hall.



Bonsecours Market


The Bonsecours Market, a jewel in Montréal's heritage crown, was inaugurated in 1847. A symbol of Montréal's heyday, this imposing building was the city's main agricultural marketplace for over a century. It also housed a concert hall and even served as a city hall in the early days of Montréal.  

Vieux-Port de Montreal, or the Old Port of Montreal, was officially opened in 1830, although it was used as early as 1611 as a trading post among French fur traders who ventured into the region. Today, the Old Port of Montreal, which stretches 2km along the shores of the St. Lawrence River, is a prime entertainment destination.

The historic port was in operation until the 1970s, before the government decided to move the city’s port activities to its current location at Mercier-Hochelaga-Maisonneuve. In the 1990s, the architects Aurele Cardinal and Peter Rose helped plan the redevelopment of the Old Port as a premier tourist and recreation center. 

Sur la francophonie Canadienne

Montreal is the next stop on our trip or should I say Montréal est la prochaine étape de notre voyage. Leaving the province of Ontario, we enter the province of Quebec where French is the predominant language and the only official language. In Quebec Province, we will visit the cities of Montreal and Quebec City.

Montreal is in the southwest of the province of Quebec. The city covers most of the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the Saint Lawrence Seaway, the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic. The city is named after the most prominent geographical feature on the island, a three-head hill called Mount Royal.

The French influence in Quebec is amazing since its been more than 350 years since the French were defeated by the British in the French and Indian War waged from 1754 to 1763.  The war pitted the American British colonies against those of New France. At the start of the war, the French North American colonies had a population of roughly 60,000 settlers, compared with 2 million in the British North American colonies.The outnumbered French particularly depended on the Indians. The European nations declared war on one another in 1756 following months of localized conflict, escalating the war from a regional affair into an intercontinental war known as the Seven Years War.

Most of the fighting ended in North America in 1760 and the war officially ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris on 10 February 1763. The British offered France the choice of surrendering either its continental North American possessions east of the Mississippi or the Caribbean islands of  Guadeloupe and Martinique, which had been occupied by the British. France chose to cede Canada to Great Britain and to relinquish all claims to the lands lying east of the Mississippi River, outside the environs of New Orleans. Spain, which had joined the conflict in its waning days and failed spectacularly in an attempt to check British ambitions in the Caribbean, was obliged to give up Florida as a condition for the return of Havana, which had been occupied by the British since August 1762. France ceded Louisiana, including New Orleans, to Spain as compensation. Thus, France, which at the beginning of the war and during its first four years held a dominating position over most of North America, had disappeared from that continent.  The map shows the territory gained by the British.  Ironically, it may have led to the ultimate loss of the American colonies because the British imposed taxed on the colonies to help pay for the heavy cost of the war.

While there is some French influence in Louisiana and even in St. Louis, its nowhere near the scale of Quebec.  Montreal is the second largest French speaking city after Paris.  The language spoken in Quebec differs from that in France in its vocabulary and pronunciation. The city has 1.7 million people and over 4 million people live in the metropolitan area.

Quebec is a province with its own parliament within a federation. According to the Canadian Constitution, the provincial parliament has jurisdiction over educational, health, agricultural, economic, and social policy in the province. Quebec governments have sought additional autonomy from the federal government since the 1940s. The Quebec government makes decisions concerning education, health, and economic matters. Municipalities have power over local matters.Quebec operates under two legal systems: French civil law and English criminal law. 

Touring Ottawa and Traveling to Montreal

Tonight's post took a little longer to prepare since Dave can access the web, but not his home or work email (maybe a blessing).  The phone does not work either.  It took awhile, but I figured out how to upload to Facebook and then download them to put on the blog.

Today was a delightful day.  After checking out of our hotel, we took a tour of Ottawa with a student guide Braedon (a Ben look alike) from Manitoba.  He guided us through the sites of Ottawa telling us about the government, some historical figures and some of the more important buildings.

We had a chance to watch the Ceremonial Guard marching to and from Parliament where they hold a Changing of the Guard Ceremony every morning.  The Ceremonial Guard is drawn from two regiments - the Governor General's Foot Guards and the Canadian Grenadier Guards. They are accompanied by their own regimental band and pipers who provided musical support for the ceremony.



We visited the War Memorial again, but this time Braedon told us of the symbolism of the cenotaph which was very touching and we were told of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier which was recently added to the front of the site.

Video of War Memorial

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

On Sparks Street, We learned the history of Thomas D'Arcy McGee, an Irishman who was a leader of the movement of Confederation for Canada.  He was one of only two political leaders in Canada to be assassinated.   At our last spot on the tour, we would see where his assassin was hung, the last public hanging in Canada.

Returning to Parliament Hill, we were surprised to learn the starting this September, the main Parliament Building and the East Block Building will be closed for renovations for 10 to 15 years.  They need to completely rebuild the interiors and are going to take out and inspect every individual brick on the exterior.  The House of Commons is moving to west block and the Senate is moving to their former train station.

West Block

Train Station Building

Across the street from Parliament is the Prime Minister's Office.  The current Prime Minister is Justin Trudeau.

Emily Murphy

Henrietta Edwards & Louise McKinney

The statues of the women pictured here are part of what's known in Canada as the Famous Five.  They were five women who brought a legal case in 1929 to determine the meaning of the word, "Persons" in the Canadian Constitution.  Prior to the legal case, the word had been interpreted to mean men and women were not allowed to vote.  The women won their case and the rest, as they say, is history.





The statues to the left are of Robert Baldwin and Sir Louis Lafontaine, English and French leaders who secretly met to help lead the way to a united Canada.  Their collaboration is something that our legislative bodies could learn from.

Canadian Museum of History 

Samuel Champlain Statue

Parliament Hill has some spectacular views of the river and the nearby city of Gatineu, Quebec.  Pictured here are the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineu and the Samuel de Champlain Statue.  De Champlain is the father of "New France" founding Quebec on July 3, 1608.

Ida at Major's Hill Park

We visited Major's Hill Park where they have the Tulip Festival each year featuring over  1 million tulips.  In 1945, the Dutch royal family sent 100,000 tulip bulbs to Ottawa in gratitude for Canadians having sheltered the future Queen Juliana and her family for the preceding three years during the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands in the Second World War. The most noteworthy event during their time in Canada was the birth in 1943 of Princess Margriet at the Ottawa Civic Hospital. The maternity ward was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing Princess Margriet's citizenship to be solely influenced by her mother's Dutch citizenship.^[In 1946, Juliana sent another 20,500 bulbs requesting that a display be created for the hospital, and promised to send 10,000 more bulbs each year which they have done each year since.

Across the street from the park is the large U.S. embassy which the locals her think looks like a submarine.

US Embassy

We headed back to the Bywood Market area where we learned that this lovely outdoor dining area was the courtyard where they had the last hanging. Good thing we did not eat there.

























We had lunch outdoors on the second floor restaurant, the Pour House which has lovely flowers handing from its railings.

Rue St. Paul

It was an easy drive to Montreal since there is nothing between Ottawa and Montreal but farms.  We checked into our awesome suite at the Embassy Suites and went off for dinner in old Montreal which is literally a block from our hotel.   Best of both worlds, new modern spacious hotel and steps from the old city.

We had dinner on the terrasse of the Epik Restaurant on Rue St. Paul.  Its a very small restaurant in a boutique hotel that has a good reputation.   We loved our meals and we're practicing our french already.  Most of the people we have encountered are bilingual so that helps too!

The outdoor Terrasse of Epik