Getting to Montreal marked the first time we'd ever had a car in a larger "foreign" city, like our European trips.  I never missed having one before and this trip proved that a car can be more of a nuisance than an asset.  First of all, driving in a large, unfamiliar city is no fun.  And trying to find parking for it for a couple days is a challenge.  It all worked out though. 

Even though they endure some pretty brutal winters, they have these outdoors staircases so they have a little more space indoors.  Those stairs must be pretty fun to climb in an ice storm.

After we got settled we set off to climb Mont Royal.  On the way up there was a small building with this graffiti.

Here is the view from the top of Mont Royal.  It was no small walk to get up there.  It was almost 3 miles to the top, and we probably had walked a mile to get to the start.  Here is a video 2.8 MB of the view, or a panoramic picture. 

Your host at the top.

This is a detail of one of the shots I took.  In the lower left you can see the monument to Sir George Etienne Cartier, our starting point for the climb.  In the distance you can see the 1976 Olympic Stadium.

The Sir George Etienne Cartier monument as well as a glimpse of the cross, just above the trees in the center, at the top of Mont Royal.  We never did find the cross.

Just a view of Rue Mont Royal from our hostel window.  It was a busy street and we were having about the same hot weather that you were.

Dave from Australia and his few-hours-old burly tattoo.  He invited us to go to a nearby park to check out a scheduled event of some sort.  It turned out to be a movie in french 200k of which we just caught the end.

Feli (right, from Switzerland) had gone to the park with us.  The night was young so we hit a nearby bar for a couple drinks.

Dave and Don.

The next morning was a trip.  It was a hazy, hot day already and we were lying in bed.  Suddenly a loud crash happened and I felt the building tremble.  We looked out the window and saw two cars that had been in an accident.  Later I confirmed that, yup, one of them actually somehow hit our building.  See the dented metal above.  We were just above this.  Later in the day, all of it was cleaned up except for the dent.

Mmmmmm......

It was kind of an overcast day, which was fine by us.  This is taken in the Old Port area.

I forget the significance of this tower, but it had something to do with a primary entrance point for anyone coming to Montreal via the river.

I think this is funny:  I was walking back from taking the above pictures and I swore I smelled something very similar to my kitchen when I'm making beer, especially the sweet malted barley aroma.  I looked around and there it was, the Molson brewery.  Good ol' nose.

The front of Basilica Notre Dame, modeled somewhat after Westminster Abbey of London.

This place was huge and beautiful.  Take a short video tour.  1.3 MB

The massive carved altar was pretty impressive.

Surround Montreal's Old Town use to be a wall.  Above is a part of what used to be the wall.

Pizza Delic had these funky lights and colors and served pizza that was kind of on a tortilla shell crust.

That night we went back to the park where we saw the end of that movie.  But instead we saw Niyaz, a band that plays traditional Iranian folk music with a modern twist.  We stayed for quite a while.  Nyiaz video clip  400K     

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