Montreal

[Deleted]

O.K. I'm having some trouble with uploading my photos, I have over 500 of Montreal, maybe it's just too many. So for now I'll just post the ones I did manage to download today. I'll probably put some more up another day.

Montreal was as beautiful as I remembered it to be. The first thing that strikes you is just how cosmopolitan it is and how there are so many different kinds of people living so well together. I think I must have seen just about every race while I was there, and people from so many different cultures. So very interesting. My kids figured out how to get about on the Metro (underground train). We visited the Space Center, insectarium, Botanical gardens, interior zoo, various museums, even took pictures of originals by picasso and Vincent Van Goth. (which I will try and post at anther time) and more...

Our accommodation at the McGill University was much better then expected, we ended up having our own apartment with bathroom and kitchen. I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking to visit Montreal. The University itself it very picturesque. The contrast between the very new and very old buildings was interesting to see. And they stood side by side. I really don't have anything negative to say about it at all, it's just a lovely city with very friendly people.


























You can actually rent a bike in the City, it's very bike friendly, there are special lanes made just for bicycle users:



It also has the most expensive looking cars I've seen in a long while, I guess as you'd expect from a large city.

[bixaorellana]

Beautiful, Deyana!

I always think of Montreal as being this very sedate, old city. How wonderful to see that vibrant, sleek modern architecture as well. Are the first pictures of downtown? The city looks so clean and well ordered. I'd love to walk everywhere in it.

[Deleted]

It's one of my favorite cities Bixa. So easy to get around in. And you are right, it's extremely clean and slick and new and at the same it also has an amazing amount of very interesting older architecture, cathedrals, buildings like Notre Dame. Every turn has something eye catching and walking around in the city is just sheer pleasure.

[lagatta]

Your photos this time round are of the modern "business centre" part of the city, which I've never found very beautiful, except when viewing it from the esplanade on Mont-Royal. Oh, you do have Wallenberg Square, a gorgeous courtyard park in the buildings of an old Anglican Church.

Other than that, I find those parts could be anywhere in the world...

The little red bicycle shown is not mine: my faithful steed is a Raleigh Sprite; a six-speed "mixte" bicycle from the 1970s. Today, I had parked dear Sprite while shopping at a supermarket and returned to find that some idiot had left a glowing cigarette end on her Amsterdam-bought saddlebags. Fortunately not much damage. I don't think it was deliberate, I think said cretin had just tossed cigarette end without looking. Strange that the little red bicycle has a mudguard on the rear wheel but not the front one.

The bicycle lanes are the result of decades of activist work. Yours truly was very much involved in that.

Bixi, our bicycle hire scheme, is of course based on Vél'lib and the even earlier scheme in Lyon. It is surprisingly popular, though you do get the serial cretins who dump on it because they hate bicycles. (I refuse to call them "Neanderthals", as that would be an insult to those early humans).

Yeah, large cities mean exclusive cars, and SDF (homeless people). But they also mean space for creativity.

I'm glad you enjoyed your university stay. I take it you were on the main campus itself. McGill also rents summer stays at this lovely converted factory in the southwestern city centre: www.mcgill.ca/residences/undergraduate/tour/solin/

Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) has modern residences, flat-style, in a more eastern area of the city centre, near the "festivals", Old Montréal and rue St-Denis.

Université de Montréal also has summer stays at residence, though they are a bit less convenient for tourists, as they are on the northern side of our so-called mountain; they are in a central area, with three métro stations and several buses as well as a bicycle lane along Côte-Ste-Catherine, but not close to most touristic sights.

[Deleted]

I found the bicycle system fascinating there lagatta. How long has it been in operation now?

McGill University is very central, here is a picture of it from the sixth floor where we were staying. The round building you see below is where we would go for breakfast every morning and it also has the main reception area. There are computers with free internet connection in that building too. It's open from very early 6 or 7 am to 10 pm at night. Downstairs in each building is a large living room area, and a T.V. room with a large screen television, other rooms too. Outside you can play tennis. Our room also had it's own balcony.






This year was the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Jazz festival:






I have pics of Old Montreal too and many other areas too, just can't upload them now, my camera is somewhat messed up I think, but anyway, Will try again another time.

[Deleted]

Great pictures, Deyana.

Lagatta, the first thing that we visitors to Montréal notice is always the central modern part -- it takes a while to discover the older parts.

And of course, it must be admitted that some of Ye Olde Vieux Montréal has a Disneyesque aspect that is off-putting to people like me.

[lagatta]

kerouac, I wasn't thinking of "Le Vieux Montréal", which unlike Québec, indeed old by North American standards (though what Europeans would notice is the spectacular setting) Le Vieux is not very old, and indeed rather Disneyfied, or at least overly tarted up. Away from Place Jacques-Cartier there are some interesting corners though, and there are many Art Déco buildings as well as older ones. I was thinking of all the many neighbourhoods made up of typical triplexes, with a very particular vibe.

The Bixi scheme is new this year, but the network of bicycle paths is at least a couple of decades old. Several of us "savagely" painted bicycle paths where many official ones are, and quite a few of us were arrested for vandalism. I stand by that particular type of vandalism, much as most types annoy me.

[bjd]

When I go to Canada, at least to Toronto, I find that I tend to go see the modern, skyscraper parts of the city too. Other than ethnic neighbourhoods, I find that most Canadian and American cities don't have interesting older parts. The buildings that are supposed to look old, like the Parliament buildings in Ottawa or the University of Toronto, are just 19th or early 20th century buildings that I don't find interesting. And at least the modern areas are only found in N America. The Parisian effort at modernism is La Défense, which is horrible.

And there are indeed residential neighbourhoods which are "typical of that city" but there is usually no reason to go there, or to even know they are there if you are a tourist in a city.

[Deleted]

The modern skyscrapers are one of the first things you notice I think. Especially as we were staying in a place that is so central. But there is much more to the city then that. The historical aspect of it is of great interest to me too......it's such a mixed bag, in so many ways.

[bixaorellana]

I am fascinated by modern anything, especially when I think that one day all that stuff that looks so sleek and cutting-edge to us will appear venerable or quaint to our descendants.

[Deleted]

Not to go off topic, but at La Défense in Paris right now, they are ripping skyscrapers apart that were built in 1975, but they are saving the skeleton and building a new skyscraper on top. They are adding 10 floors to one of them, which will make it the tallest office building in France, passing the Tour Montparnasse (which after all is only 58 floors high) -- I will be curious to see the final result, but in any case it is a change from dynamiting buildings and starting from scratch.

[Deleted]

They started doing that in New York City too some years back.

I guess when they can't expand width ways, they have no other choice but to go up. In New York you can buy 'air space'.

[Deleted]

China Town, in Montreal:





The Underground (Metro):




Jazz festival:

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Hospital:




Caribbean Parade:

[Deleted]

As we all know, melting pot cities are the best! Thanks for the photos, Deyana.

[Deleted]

They are the best kind, Kerouac. I wish all cities/places were like this.

[Deleted]

I thought I put some more pics up of Montreal on here yesterday.

Anyway, here they are again:




Interior zoo - the Biodome:



Inside:






Botanical gardens:




Inside the Insectarium:

[Deleted]

I remember that the Biodôme was one of the Olympic stadiums from 1976.

[Deleted]

Yes, it was that.

[lagatta]

Think it was the Vélodrome. While the Biodome is an interesting place for city-dwellers to learn about ecosystems, I was rather sad that Québec lost its high-quality facility where athletic cyclists could train in the long winter months (one does NOT ride bicycles like that in the ice, dirty snow and road salts!

[bixaorellana]

What a wonderful place! You all must have had such a good time there, Deyana. What made you decide to go -- had you been before?

[Deleted]

It was fun. Bixa. Most of the things we did were kid orientated as you can tell. What I didn't mention was that Montreal also has an amazing night life for us adults too. Something I didn't see this time around.

I've lived in Montreal before, some years ago, and my two oldest boys are half French Canadian, so part of their extended family are from Montreal.

[Deleted]

Did you visit the Montréal family?

[Deleted]

The extended family in Montreal is huge, it's hard to keep track of them all.

[spindrift]

I have very much enjoyed the tour of Montreal. I would like to visit the city one of these days. I've actually never been to Canada. Thanks Deyana.

[Deleted]

You're welcome spindrift.

[Deleted]

Some pics of Montreal that I didn't take:











I guess I find it so interesting because there are so many aspects to it.

[Deleted]

Those houses with the little steps seem so appealing in autumn and so dreary in the dead of winter!

[Deleted]

They are so romantic looking in the Autumn aren't they?

I dunno, I think the snow can be quite enchanting in it's own way.

[Deleted]

Oh, I have always loved the snow and the -18° temperature when I have visited for 3 or 4 days in the middle of winter. But living there? I'll leave that to Lagatta!