Day 109 Montreal Canada

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  Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Sunday, August 24, 2008

Day 109 Montreal Canada
Well we did it! We caught the bus into Montreal and have spent the day on a tour, we walked around and absorbed the sights and sounds of Montreal.
The Greyline bus turned up on time to pick us up at 9am, a couple of tourists already onboard and we picked up a couple more at a hotel on the way in.
We followed the driver into the check in counter to book our tour on the hop on and off double Decker bus.
The price was higher than advertised as well as an extra $5 fee each for picking us up. A little bit of teeth grinding, but pay up and let's have a look around.
The double Decker was late in arriving and when it did we climbed on to wait another 15 mins, we didn't have a driver!
Eventually the tour began, the narrator was well informed and knew the buildings and the history of the City.
The City is on an Island of 32 miles long and 15 miles wide, a very cosmopolitan as well as very old world buildings being maintained from the early settlement. At least the narration was in English and then French, that made it easier to follow.
The round trip took 2 hours and we viewed the Universities and a lot of places of interest.
We all agreed that the stand out feature we would like to revisit would be; the Old time markets.
How is our luck? We have run into Markets set back in time of 400 years ago. This is an event held yearly by the people of Montreal, and the markets are set in time period type stalls and the vendors are in time period costume.
So we had lunch, AGAIN how do we do it? We walk down to a food court, and yep everything is written in French with NO English translation. What is the solution to this dilemma? Use the sign boards, and pick a picture we figured we could handle.
We did it! We judiciously chose a picture of a "normal" looking sandwich with fries, yee haa we were successful and ended up with a nice toasted club sandwich with chips. Well done team!
We found our way back to the tour bus to hop on and take the section to the Notra Dame Church, with some wonderful internal features, we had been told about on the tour, we decided this might be worth a look, as well, the Old Markets were just downhill from this feature.
We arrive at the church and because it is after 1pm, there is a charge of $5 per adult to look inside, HEY enough already, a quick conference and it was decided that; "gee it wasn't all that important!" besides without a service being given why would we pay just to walk in?
We walked down hill to the old time markets and this was quite fascinating, with the old stalls. Vendors selling or making old fashioned produce, including giving demonstrations of rope making, Moulding spoons with hot metal, pottery, minstrels playing time aged instruments, oracles giving speeches, cheese tasting, Period costumed French soldiers, as well as some native Iroquois Indians doing beading, with a birch bark canoe on display. Some genuine lace making with the bobbles, boot makers, etc. The stalls and displays took up a section of about a block of stalls on the sidewalk.
It was fascinating, our only challenge was simply, they all spoke French and we couldn't understand any of the speeches, as well, it was a little difficult to ask questions. At one stage we were handed a piece of paper by an information stall, the woman rattled off her spiel, in rapid fire French, Rick looked her in the eye and said, "I did NOT understand one word of what you just said!" she gave a pained look and then said in English, "That is the program of events that are on today, and one is about to start now" "Oh thank you" When we looked at the program it was written in French! Gee well done information giver!    
It was an interesting experience and we are pleased to have had the chance to be a part of observing this annual event, again our timing is impeccable.
We decided to walk back to our tour depot, this is where the shuttle bus is to take us back to our KOA, but of course the boys had spotted an ice cream shop, (It was written in French, but that didn't deter the comprehension as to the goods inside!) so we stopped off for an ice cream and a little rest as well.
The ice cream finished, time to head back, what a challenge, even with a map, and a directory board of the Old Montreal area we were in, we had a lot of difficulty obtaining our bearings. We chose a direction to towards a Rue we recognised, and made headway. We passed the China town part of the city so we knew we were on track. We found Rue St Catherine and felt a little more comfortable, but gee which way? Left or right? We chose wisely and headed left and found the next street appeared to be in the correct direction of the information centre we had taken the tour from, (there were three information centres marked on the map just to confuse us a little more.
We decided we were tracking well and Karon was happy, Rue St Catherine had all the brand name shops, she must have recalled the narration on the bus, because we passed (or should we say "Tried to pass" one shop and Karon dived inside, it was made up of part of the underground (30 miles of underground shopping malls under this city) as well as around 60 named brand shops in the one area. One of the boys managed to get into a little trouble, Rick (who else?) plopped himself down on a seat near the entrance (thinking oh well she will return via this door,) Earnie went for the Washrooms, leaving Karon standing wondering where the hell is Rick now? Whoops he forgot to mention his intention. We did manage to hook up again and had a quick look around and then another cuppa, back outside in the rather warm humid day, to complete our search for the bus depot.
We managed to find our way back with 25 mins to spare and checked in for our ride back home.
We also managed to come across one of the other couples that had come in on the bus, and had a chat to them. We were given information about the large tide movements in Maine and this sounds like an interesting thing to view.
The shuttle bus home took longer to get back than to go in, we were the last dropped off. Home to relax and catch up on some food and report back to our loyal followers.
It looks like Maine is our next target, we have decided that we have had enough of learning French, so are heading south East towards Maine USA tomorrow. At least we can read and understand the language, and we might even find a real Wal Mart.

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