Montreal

         We set out for Montreal on Thursday morning.  It wasn’t that far from our anchorage, but the current was strong and against us; most of the time we were making less than 5 knots, and as we approached the Jacques Cartier Bridge, our speed went down to 1.8 knots.  We passed the current port of Montreal before we got to the Old Port - miles of docking and cranes waiting for the big cargo ships to load or unload their freight.  We also passed the Olympic Village of 1976.  Dan has found memories of attending that Olympics with a couple buddies.  

We stayed two nights at the Marina Port D-Escale du Vieux.  It’s a small marina in a little man-made basin between two very long docks.  The people are very friendly, the place is secure, and we were steps away from the restaurants, shops, and parks that make up the Old Port.  We docked just after noon on Thursday and were finding our way around town within the hour.  What an incredible city!  There are stone buildings dating from the 1700s mixing in with art deco buildings from the 1920s and much more modern buildings. 

The people are equally diverse.  A lot of shops and art galleries are devoted the First Nations cultures and China Town hosts a variety of Southeast Asian foods and boutiques.  We got a kick out of the restaurant called Chez Chili. Chez is French, Chili hints at Mexican food, but it specializes in Szechuan and Hunan dishes.  We walked and walked, poking our noses into many places, getting a feel for everything.  We stopped in a small Mexican restaurant just for drinks, returned to the boat to feed Tommie, and then set out again for a meal in China Town at Maison VIP.  It was excellent.  We spent the remainder of the evening checking out the various art galleries. 

Friday (June 16) we set off to visit the Montreal Museum of Archeology and History.  This is a multi-building museum, all connected through underground tunnels, and gives a terrific history of this city.  It incorporates actual building foundations in the underground tunnels as part of the exhibit - showing parts of older walls and sewers along with many artifacts.  The entire history of Montreal is done exceptionally well.  We highly recommend this museum just for this aspect, but they also have temporary exhibits. Currently there is a great one about the culture of Egypt.  It’s not so much about mummies and pharaohs, but about the societies themselves.  Also very well done.  We spent several hours there. 

 Afterwards, we walked to a nearby Portuguese restaurant and had a late lunch.  It was an odd time of day, so we pretty much had the place to ourselves, and our waiter couldn’t have been nicer.  The food was very good. 

We walked around some more, and stumbled upon an open rehearsal of a quintet in one of the oldest churches in the city.  The woman had a beautiful voice. 

We had an ice cream supper and watched the sunset.  The picture doesn’t do it justice - it was a very fiery-red ball, due the wildfire smoke that has been wafting over this area today.