More Montreal

Montreal had some "interesting" arty constructions, like this odd circle affair in the rather prosperous looking downtown area linking two office blocks but for no obvious reason:

The city also has some strange looking and controversial housing that was built for the 1967 Expo. Well worth having a look at the website  Habitat 67 website  - here is a distant view from across the river to give you a flavour of it:

The concept of modules linked in a way so that they all had serious amounts of privacy was pretty clever but a little like Marmite for the local inhabitants. The waterfront hosted a couple of large marinas, old grain stores and the Jacques Cartier bridge:

which for the terminally bored is apparently the third busiest bridge in Canada. The joys of building a city on an island....  We have to question some of the city planning decisions though. This church tower looked a little out of place, or should we say that the things erected around it are very out of place?

No such problem with the cathedral. Truly amazing place. Stunning architecture and attention to detail within, emphasised by clever, atmospheric lighting:

The enormous balcony area dedicated to the organ was quite something. The instrument has over 7000 pipes so must sound quite amazing. Our visit wasn't at the right time to experience it though: 

After all that culture (the cathedral was one of those rare places that just makes you stand and stare for ages), we did the proper touristy thing and took a boat trip. Yes, we were missing the boating fix. Our craft was less than elegant:

but gave us views of the old Olympic stadium and the massive dock area. Miles of alongside berths, mainly empty at the time we visited. The trip was shared with three ladies from Chicago who bemoaned the weather and possibility of being shot in their home city. Mum was enjoying her trip and as a 90 year old was setting a great example for older folks:

After the rather sedate trip, we walked the length of the waterfront and admired the bungee jumpers - the larger framed ones only just avoided a dunking before they were hoisted skywards once more. The little dinghy that was used to rescue them from the bungee line and ferry them back to the shore once the oscillations had stopped was amusing. It looked way more dangerous being released into the dinghy than actually doing the jump:

Montreal was great. Cheap public transport with only one major drawback - the airport which is pretty busy, is only served by road at the moment. The bus service was OK but the traffic around the airport was manic. Roll on the train link they are constructing. We enjoyed a wonderful Indian fusion meal, some good coffee and cake stops and learning more about the city in general. So far the trip was going well.

Going Canadian

Whilst Martin and Inge (the ex owners of  Malaspina, a Nordhavn 47) were staying with us earlier in the year, they told us that we had to visit Canada. They then suggested a couple of must do things which we could hardly refuse. You can learn about those in later posts. Suffice to say that we ended up at Heathrow for a BA flight to Montreal. We chilled in the lounge before the flight, amazed at how miserable / distracted some folks can be:

Her face never cracked - not once. The crew on the other hand, had the serious business of organising some food and a glass of fortification to keep her going until she got fed on the plane:

BA had a deal going on - pay for premium economy, get a business class ticket. It felt like old times for the captain, settling into the nice pod seat, having dinner then enjoying a snooze in the flat bed it converts into. For the crew,  it was a first experience of "turning left" on a plane and it has created a monster. Future longer haul travel is unlikely to be at the back of the plane. The BA boarding process was a mess (as usual). Why they consistently get it wrong after so many years of practice is beyond belief. After a nice flight with OK service, we then spent 40 minutes taxiing around Montreal airport trying to get a gate. The BA pilot announced that it was his record time spent circling an airport too. Luckily for us, it really did not matter much as we were staying in an airport hotel and had no need to rush around the following morning.

Our first experience of the Montreal area (crew hadn't been to Canada before, the captain had only been to the Toronto district)  showed that some Canadians have poor automotive taste:

The Cybertruck looks even worse in the metal than in pictures by the way. We headed into the city, wandered around enjoying the architecture:

and wondering if we had landed in Paris by mistake:

The "you don't speak French" thing was quite noticeable until people realised we were English when it became more acceptable. The crew, despite many hours refreshing her French language studies on Duolingo, stuck to English too. We were blessed with wonderful warm weather allowing some great walks around the city centre and waterfront. This preserved old tug just looked so much like a bathtub toy:

We enjoyed an excellent first lunch out in a restaurant that seemed to serve the "business lunch" folks - we were rather casual compared to most diners and our conversation was way less employment focussed. However, not all of the locals were that worried about work:

It didn't look too comfortable though.