Tag Archives: Holiday travel

Taking Steps in Montréal

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Friday 23 September 2022 – For our first full day of exploring Montréal, we settled on two aspects we wanted to prioritise.  Neither of them was particularly likely to be in evidence near our hotel, and walking to them would have taken too much time, so we decided to use the Metro to get us about. Apart from anything else, we both feel that using public transport in a strange place gives one a greater feeling of connection with it; Montréal is really the first place on our long trip through Canada where using it has made sense, so we were glad to take the opportunity.

The hotel is connected to RÉSO, as is the nearest metro station and it only took a small amount of blundering about to enable us to find it. We bought 3-day passes, which would give us unlimited use of the system whilst we were here.  I tried to use the transaction to split a 50-dollar note, as we were running short of smaller denominations, only to be told that the transaction was card only – something I suspect is true in many places across the city now.

The Metro here is not a particularly intricate network – just three lines – but the Orange line suited our needs.  I am quite impressed with what we’ve seen of the Metro.  It’s clean,  reasonably frequent and has modern trains which run, like many Paris Metro trains, on rubber tyres.  There are some nice design points in the way it operates, too.

Station announcements are clear, lights tell you which side to disembark, and they also warn you when the doors are about to close by turning red.  There’s a mobile signal throughout and altogether it seems a very good system.

Acting on recommendations from the esteemed Ian Burley, we aimed for Jean Talon, which features a well-established market.  The area is well out into the suburbs and does have the same air as some of the (nicer) banlieus of Paris.

The market is very substantial, and looks like a typical sort of market you find in France,

with lots of wonderful-looking fresh produce, meats and cheeses.  There is a considerable variety of some things,

such as these varieties and colours of aubergines and cauliflowers, the like of which I’d never seen before.

On the way to the market, we saw examples of one of the two aspects of the city we were keen to explore – street art.

Some items are very obviously formal works of art.  Others are more difficult to distinguish from upmarket graffiti.

The city staged a festival of street art for 2022, and Jane had found a website which gave an idea of where to find some examples that were part of this festival, as well as some pieces that have been in place for longer.  And we found lots and lots of examples, one or two of which I’ll share in a moment – just be patient. But, after leaving the market, we also came across the other aspect that we (Jane, particularly) wanted to see: outdoor staircases.

The city has a phenomenon called a “plex” – a building with apartments stacked on top of each other.  In many cases, external staircases are used to reach the upper ones. The basic reason for this is to save space on internal staircases.  There’s an interesting article giving more detail here.

We reached a section of the city called Little Italy,

no, really,

and found that these external staircases can be found in profusion here. So I got my camera out and Took Steps:

The (mostly ironwork) staircases look interesting and artistic on a nice sunny day such as this one; what they must be like to use in the ice and snow of a Montréal winter I dread to think…

Our route towards more examples of street art was the Boulevard St. Laurent, which is a busy and quite crowded main road.  One block to the side of it, though, is Clark Street, which is much quieter and more pleasant, and also contains many examples of these external staircases.

It also has a segregated cycle path along much of its run through Little Italy, which makes stepping off the pavement unwise without checking carefully in both directions. Here are a couple more instances of these interesting cultural oddities.

Even the less attractive ones are interesting to look at.

We also saw a few other oddities as we walked along:  what seems to me a risky way of exercising dogs;

A Catholic church with an unusual architecture, offering services in Polish, Italian and English (only open on Sundays, so sadly we couldn’t peek inside)

and the absolutely massive building which once housed the Canadian Warehouse Company.

But now: the street art.  There is a lot of it – it’s A Thing in Montréal, much more than anywhere else we’ve visited in Canada.  There are all sorts: grotesque;

abstract;

advertising the business;

fantasy;

fanciful;

flashy;

and unfathomable.

Sharing all the photos I took here would be too cumbersome, so I have created a Flickr Album with 44 examples, if you’re interested to see more.

The one thing that we noted about every single piece of street art we saw was that they were all, every single one, defaced by graffiti, which I found very saddening.  In fact, there was graffiti everywhere we looked and its utter ubiquity leaves me with a less than favourable impression of the city.  Sure, every city has its graffiti, but there’s so much here that it renders even the attractive bits ugly in my view.

In the midst of all of this (vandalised) street art, we discovered we were (a) hungry and (b) near a deli recommended by the indefatigable Ian Burley – Schwartz’s Hebrew Delicatessen, famous for its smoked meats.  So famous, in fact, that it has its own Wikipedia entry. And so famous that the queue to eat in the restaurant is, well, quite famous.

Jane spotted that there’s a take-out section,.  The queue in there was quite substantial, but very fast-moving.

We got a Smoked Meat Sandwich each, (with a pickle, already!), and actually scored seats at the very back of the shop; I can report that their pastrami is delicious, but you really must make sure to have napkins or tissues to hand, as the portions are vast and tend to leak everywhere.

Clark Street actually runs all the way into the city, and is much preferable to walk along compared to St. Laurent.  It also has some really interesting houses along it.

On the other side of St. Laurent to Clark Street there is a square called St. Louis,

which is also surrounded by some really individual properties.

As you get towards the city, having passed through Little Italy and Little Portugal

you reach Chinatown, which is quite small, but has four gates.  This is the main one (through which you can just see the far gate)

and then, before you know it, you’re by the Old Town, and in our case, near the Basilica Notre Dame,  Like almost everywhere, it was under maintenance –

I guess when you have winters like they have here, you have only a limited window in which to get things fixed, but another thing I found oppressive was the ubiquity of roadworks and other construction projects going on.

Anyhoo.

We went inside. It’s quite a sight.

It’s another telling example of the opulence of Catholic churches as opposed to the more austere Protestant approach to worship.

You’d have thought we’d have had enough by now, but no – we were near the Old Port and there was The Wheel.

You can’t see something like that on a sunny day and not want to ride round it, can you?  So that’s what we did.  To be candid, there are so many reflections once you’re in a cabin that photography can be quite unrewarding, but we managed a couple of reasonable photos between us as we went round.

The last one of these, the “galleon”, we subsequently found out, is set up as a kids’ adventure playground, with all sorts of places to climb around; a nice idea.

And that really was it for the day.  We headed back to the nearest Metro station and thence to the hotel for a much needed glass of something cold before retiring for the evening.  The day was long but interesting, with many charming aspects of Montréal to balance against its ineffable scruffiness.  We have one more full day here; who knows what we shall do with it?  I’m pretty sure Jane Has A Plan… come back and find out, eh?

 

Québec Quests

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Wednesday 21 September 2022 – Our second and final day in Québec dawned fine and sunny (according to the UK Met Office) or at least not raining (according to looking out of the hotel window). Given that it’s such a historic, individual and photogenic city, we felt we had to get out and explore; Jane had some specific sights she wanted to see as part of any wanderings on our part. To aid us in our quest to find out more about the place, we joined another “free” walking tour, this one led by Sam

who described himself as having a beard and a sense of humour – accurate in both cases, as it turns out. He was full of knowledge and amusing ways of putting stories across, often referring to the city’s official motto – “Je me souviens” – I remember.

To start with, we had to find Sam. The appointed meeting place was the fountain by the national assembly building

to reach which we walked up Rue St-Louis, which is an attractive street

containing the city’s oldest house

and its own city gate.

(not the original one – Sam explained that originally there was a much narrower opening, as befits a gate designed to restrict city access. After the British defeated the French here in 1759, they bolstered the defences in order (successfully) to resist the subsequent French siege. The city walls were saved from destruction in the late 19th century by the then Governor General of Canada, Lord Dufferin, who was enough of a visionary to realise the value of future tourism and so had the walls preserved and the gates widened to open the city to visitors). The fortifications, along with the rest of Old Québec, were designated an UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 and remain the only intact fortified colonial settlement in North America north of Mexico.

The National Assembly building has several statues in niches all over its façade. Sam identified two of them.

On the left – General Wolfe, the winner of the British fight for Quebec; on the right, the Marquis de Montcalm. History is written by the victors, and it’s unusual, and rather refreshing, to see any recognition on historic buildings of the people who came second. I think this is possibly a reflection of the thoughtful approach that Canadians seem to take to many aspects of life.

Sam is obviously a film buff, as he referred to a couple of films during his tour. One of them was “Catch Me If You Can“, a caper in which Tom Hanks tries to nab Leonardo DiCaprio as he blags his way across the world. The other was an Alfred Hitchcock thriller called “I confess“, about the dilemma facing a priest who receives confession from a murderer. Sam showed us the actual house where the “murder” was committed, something other guided tours don’t cover.

The current occupant of the house is clearly familiar with Sam leading tours past his house, as he came to the window and waved to us all.

Our tour then passed between two libraries – a modern one housed in an old French church and an old one housed in a more modern building which was originally a gaol.

Passing the Clarendon hotel, a building on a site with history that goes back as far as 1685, and is thus far older than the ancient-looking Chateau Frontenac

our next stop was at the Town Hall.

It’s a very imposing building, and doubtless Sam dispensed some interesting nuggets about it; but I became fascinated by its fountains.

After this, we headed (past a building with a very bizarre artwork attached to it)

towards Old Québec,

which is (a) historic, (b) photogenic and (c) contains many of the things Jane wanted to see. These included the “Breakneck Steps”, the city’s oldest steps, so called because they were once rather rickety as well as steep;

then round the corner to this:

which, presented as above (with some photoshoppery), looks like a city scene, but is actually the Québec city mural, telling the story of Québec;

indigenous artwork in a street off Place Royale;

and another wonderful building-side mural

(again, here, with image manipulated – it really looks as below).

The whole area is desperately photogenic

and gives what Sam asserts is the best view of the Chateau Frontenac – and who am I to argue?

Trees in the above photo actually hide the Funicular, which people can use to travel up to the hotel square if they are prepared to pay the 4 CAD fare.

The Place Royal features the outline of where the first building in Québec stood

and Sam pointed out that this was where Tom Hanks and Leonardo DiCaprio actually stood during the filming of “Catch Me If You Can“. Just round the corner is the ultimate Selfie Spot,

where one can ruin a perfectly decent city scene by appearing in it, on the Old City Centre Swing. There are any number of photo opportunities around this part, and the place really, really feels like Paris.

It isn’t, of course, but is often used in films to portray France. In the above, the piano accordion is actually an electronic instrument and you can’t move far without the smell of popcorn pervading the air – giveaways that you’re not in France after all. (Another one is the ubiquity of tin roofs; in France, lead is more commonly used.)

That ended Sam’s entertaining and informative tour, so we headed back up to the hotel up the

172 steps you need to climb.

For once, instead of eating at the hotel, good as its meals are, we had booked an early dinner outside, at a place recommended by Ian Burley called Le Hobbit. The restaurant is in Rue St-Jean, which gave us an opportunity to walk to it past the Observatoire de la Capitale, which is on the 31st floor of a building next to the National Assembly. So once again we headed up Rue St-Louis, pausing to take a photo of Churchill and Roosevelt

(these sculptures celebrating their meeting here in 1943 to plan the D-Day Landings) and found our way to the top of the Observatoire building. One needs to book, and, helpfully, there’s a QR code on the ground floor for paying one’s entrance. But we didn’t have internet access, and it needed help from a sympa young chap who was guarding the Observatoire on the top floor to help us pay our entrance fees. That achieved, we had a few minutes to wander the four sides of the Observatoire, looking at the views of the city around us.

Then we crossed to Rue St-Jean, which is jolly picturesque,

includes the Church of St. John the Baptist which gives the street its name

and has some interesting shop windows.

We had a very good meal at Le Hobbit (thanks, Ian). Then we wandered back to the hotel in the gathering gloom, via the Old Town, to see if it was as picturesque at night as it is during the day.

This signalled the end of our time in Québec, as we had to be ready to catch an earlyish train to Montréal the next morning. It would have been nice to have had more time to explore – a lesson learned for future holidays of the pith and moment of this one – but it was lovely to have seen what we did. Jane thought that maybe it was just a little bit too picture perfect, but I loved the place. Maybe we’ll be back; who knows? But tomorrow is onward! to Montréal, so please come back to see what we made of things there.

Anne Interesting Tour

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Tuesday 20 September 2022 – The weather forecast for the day was gloomy, and the reality out of our hotel window

didn’t give huge cause for elation.  So, by an accident of fate, our plan to be on a bus for most of the day looked pretty sound.  There was a little uncertainty about precisely where the bus would stop, as a result of which we failed to be first on it and therefore to get the prime seats at the front of the upper deck.  This was a little bit of a shame, as the front windows actually boasted windscreen wipers, and so would have been clear for taking photos.

The driver, Dan, gave an interesting and folksy commentary as we went along and we tried to grab photos of the things he was talking about – never easy on a reasonably swift-moving bus on a rainy day, but one or two are worth sharing.

The route went north-east from Québec City, along the north coast of the St. Lawrence river.  This is the area where original settlers, erm, settled, and it seems that it took a few years for them to find the best area: at first they made homes on the banks of the St. Lawrence, but these got washed away by the unexpectedly high tides; so the next attempt was on top of the cliffs that bordered the river, but these were subject to the  bitterly cold north-easterly winds; finally, the best location turned out to be at the foot of the cliffs, out of the reach of the tides and sheltered from the winds.

By this stage, the settlers had learned about the potentially 12 feet of snow that could be expected during the winter, and so the houses tended to have steps up to the entrances.  We tried to catch some pictures of these houses as we went by.

 

On thing that we noticed was the colour of the roofs, many of which were (like that church spire I mentioned in my last post) silver in colour.  It turns out that these are tin, chosen because it is reasonably long-lasting and also fire-resistant.  Many have brightly-coloured roofs.

The reason for this is historical, as there’s no real need for the colour now.  But in the days of the original settlers, with houses relatively few and far between and 12 feet of snow on the ground in winter, the coloured roof was perhaps the only landmark a person could see.  The house in the photo immediately above features a “spring kitchen” – a place where folk could gather as the weather broke after winter, to celebrate the arrival of spring.

Houses that were farms tended to a strip of land that stretched back to the banks of the river – that way it was easy to understand land ownership.  Some of the farm houses are very handsome

and some of the older buildings show , from the reduced height of the door, that people weren’t as tall then (late 16h and 17th century) as they are today – perhaps as much as a foot shorter on average.

The tour made its first stop in St-Anne-de–Beaupré, a small town of perhaps 3,000 souls, but home to an astonishing Basilica.  The first church was built by sailors, seeking protection against shipwrecks off Ile-Oeuf on their way upriver to Quebec City (Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, is the patron saint of sailors).  But the church has grown and grown, and has a reputation similar to that of Lourdes as a place for the sick to come on a pilgrimage and be cured.

It is huge

and ornate, both outside

and inside.

The doors are covered in beautiful copper, both outside

and in.

and there are extraordinary stacks of crutches and other mobility aids

which have been left here by people who have been cured of their illnesses.

There are no fewer than three other religious establishments immediately around the Basilica,

a couple of churches and, above, a commemorative chapel  of the third church.   On the gentle slopes of the hillside behind the chapel and beside the Santa Scala pictured above it are twelve bronze statues of the Stations of the Cross.

All in all, it is clear that Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré is a very significant religious centre.  There’s something excitingly called a Cyclorama

which is not, after all, a wall of death for daredevil motorbikers to whizz round, but actually a 365-ft representation in the round of Christ’s crucifixion – sadly closed since the pandemic and not yet re-opened.

After this stop, we retraced our journey back towards Quebec City. Driver Dan described the next stop as a “Copper Shop” and I wondered why we would visit a police station.  At first, it seemed merely the sort of retail opportunity that is often an unwelcome intrusion into a tour, as we were ushered into the lobby lined with works of art made from copper.  I was wrong to misjudge it, though.  We were at Cuivres d’Art Albert Gilles Boutique et Musée. Our group was given a short demonstration of how sheet copper can be transformed into a work of art.

although what we saw was a mere illustration using thin sheet metal; the real material is five times as thick and takes real skill, dedication and time to make into a final sculpture.

The studio, which was started by Albert Gilles who has passed the flame to daughter and grand-daughter, also hosted an exhibition, including Albert’s work to create silver representations of the life of Christ,

a project which took him 15 years, as well as some other lovely items.

The key thing that prevented this from being an unwelcome attempt to sell us stuff came with the knowledge, imparted by Madame, that Albert Gilles had created the copper doors for the Basilica at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (along with work at some 60 other churches).  We left with a great, erm, impression of the man, his work and his art.

We next stopped at the Montmorency Falls.   These are 83 metres high, thus higher than Niagara, although not as powerful.

The falls are impressive enough from ground level, but one can reach the top for a different viewpoint.  You have a choice: walk up steps to the right of the falls as you look at them – 487 steps, we’re told, since we didn’t take this option (not enough time) – or a cable car to the left, which is quicker, less work but costs more.

The cable car is unique in my experience in two ways: the cars are clamped to the cable and it’s the cable that moves; and each car is clamped to two cables, which (obviously) both move. From the top of the cable car, you go past Montmorency Pavilion

and can take a couple of viewpoints, the better of which is ruined, in my photography-solipsistic world, by zipwire cables spoiling the view.  There’s a suspension bridge across the falls, which is quite exciting.  On the left from this viewpoint you can see the steps which hardy souls can climb and which would probably give the most satisfying viewpoint.

In the distance, in the upper of these two pictures, you can see a much larger suspension bridge. This leads to – indeed is the only road access to – the Île-d’Orléans, which is where we headed next.

This island is home mainly to farms, as building regulations forbid the creation of any other kind of industrial construction.  It produces mainly fruit and vegetables – strawberries, apricots, potatoes and apples. There’s a 9-hole golf course, a couple of churches and a decent selection of very handsome (and expensive, obvs) homes.  There’s a Nougaterie, and a blackcurrant farm, Cassis Monna & Filles, which Ian Burley recommends for its gin, but rather than go there, we ended up at a chocolate shop, right at the western point of the island, where you can actually see back over to Québec.

If you look carefully, you can even see the central tower of our hotel, just above the left-hand cruise ship.

The chocolate shop is very obviously a popular place for tours

but we resisted the urge to dash in and stuff our faces.  Instead, since this was the last stop of the tour and we were back at the hotel shortly afterwards, we headed to a hotel restaurant called Sam (for reasons we discovered the next day) where, by virtue of force of personality, or perhaps just plain luck, we just managed to squeeze in for a late, and very good, lunch and a couple of cold, and very welcome, drinks.

Was this a “Fabulous Country Tour”?  Well, not really – and of course the dull weather didn’t help – but it was interesting and we learned quite a lot about early settlers; and the Basilica was a truly remarkable place.  We enjoyed the day and could now look forward to our second and final day in Québec.  The weather outlook was rather better, so we could expect to have a good chance to explore this fascinating city in more detail.  Do come back and find out, won’t you?