Montreal in less than a day - July 5th 2012

On the road before 7a.m. for Montreal - a 2 hour journey if you know exactly where you're going and we didn't, this being our first visit to the city. By sheer chance we spotted a ? (if you haven't read earlier blogs you won't understand this!) and parked illegally in order to get parking and hopping (if you haven't read earlier blogs you won't understand this either!) information. We were in Vieux Montreal and needed to go downtown to Dorchester Square (that was actually what we were looking for originally but Nuvi was having none of it). The first hopping bus was due to depart at 10 a.m. and we wanted to be on it. Finally we got parked and emerged from underground with no real idea of where we were. we did a brief memorisation of where we were, in order to find the car again. It reminded me a bit about the story we had heard about someone on holiday somewhere in Germany. He parked and wrote down the name of the street. When he was ready to return to the car, he asked directions to Einbahnstrasse to be told that what he had noted was the sign for a one-way street! Pretty hard to find the car then!! Fortunately in Canada they speak English and French and I have sufficient of both not to be caught out in the same way.

We set off on foot, hoping we were going in the direction of Dorchester Square as it was 9.50. We passed a park area, which I later discovered to be Place du Canada, and noticed that it was cordoned off by the police. There was a lot of ambulance and police activity and then we noticed what was obviously a body covered by a yellow sheet. We passed quickly on, feeling rather uncomfortable that our main concern was to get to the hop on hop off bus while some form of tragedy had taken place here. We did not even stop to eavesdrop on the female police constable who was being interviewed on the sidewalk as we passed by. However, the sight remained with us and indeed we saw the yellow sheet-covered body several times in the course of the morning as the bus passed Place du Canada several times. It was a vivid reminder of how many other things, happy and sad, are taking place while we are just involved in our own wee lives. I have since found out that the body had been discovered at 8.50 a.m. and that the police were investigating the possibility of a suicide.

The long line in the ? Centre ensured that the 10 a.m. bus was gone by the time we had tickets but we got the 10.30 so not much time was wasted. Once we had hopped on, we knew that we would not be hopping off again until we had completed the full two and a half hour tour and we knew that time constraints would not allow us to hop on again.

Basilique Marie-Reine-du-Monde

The Conference Centre has an unusual attraction. Its Winter Garden is a forest of 52 concrete trees painted lipstick-pink to celebrate the city's flourishing cosmetic industry and demonstrate Montreal's inexhaustible joie de vivre. The lipstick forest is patterned after the hundred-year old maples that line the avenues in the old city.

 This is also the Conference Centre. It has an immense facade of coloured glass panels. The Guide told us that they represent the coloured jerseys in all the ice-hockey leagues. Somehow, I think that there is something more to it than that!

Montreal has a very small Chinatown which is very peaceful and friendly, according to the guide.
This is the roof of the Holiday Inn in this district.

Chateau Ramezay is the oldest private museum in the province of Quebec. It was the first building in Quebec to be classified a historic monument. It charts more than 500 years of the history of Montreal. We admired but did not hop off to enter.

The triangular topped skyscraper is the tallest in Montreal which has a law that states that no building should be taller than its mountain, Mont Royal.

The Montreal World Fair was held in 1967 and the pavilions were built to last for 4 months. The only pavilion to remain is the Biosphere which was built for the U.S. It is now home to the Environment Museum.

The Casino. Open 24 hours, 365 days a year - isn't that amazing!

Montreal skyline from Notre Dame Island.

I didn't realise that Montreal was an island until we got here. There are lots of islands.

La Ronde - a six flag theme park. We surveyed Eastern Canada's largest Amusement Park from the bridge to Notre Dame Island. Imagine doing all those rides and puking your guts up each time!

Sadly an employee of La Ronde died on July 5th (while we were in Montreal - how many tragedies do there have to be!) when he was struck by the coaster called the Vampire. It seems he was "inappropriately" in a "locked, restricted" area.

This is The Village (Le Village gai). Even the lampposts leading in are clothed in pink. Montreal is known worldwide for being a gay-friendly place. It is really atmospheric.

University of Quebec and Montreal.

Special ultra-modern lights have been installed in the Quartier des Spectacles (Festival Area) to focus the lights on the show and avoid disturbing the residents in the area. The Jazz Festival is on in Montreal at the moment.

Crab Apple trees in the centre of the road near McGill University.

Bikes are very popular in Montreal. The city has a bike rental scheme similar to the city bike scheme in Ireland (Jim did not get a photo but there were banks of bikes all over the city - how did he miss them?). In Montreal they call their scheme bixi - a mixture of bike and taxi. It works very well.

This monument/sculpture is called The Illuminated Crowd. This was created by Raymond Masson in 2010. It shows 65 people of all ages, races, facial expression and conditions on four platforms. It is made from stratified polyester resin with polyurethane paint - it's plastic. The wealthier people are at the front and the poorer at the back. It illustrates the fragility of the human race and the fragility of the human condition.

Outside the Musee des Beaux Arts is this sculpture, a giant-winged, angel-like sculpture. Jim caught it only from the side.

It’s called The Eye. The near 4-metre-tall bronze statue was commissioned by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts from celebrated Montreal-born sculptor David Altmejd. The creature vaguely evokes Michelangelo’s David in form. But the similarities stop there. The Eye’s legs show an Altmejd trademark, a kind of putrefaction or metamorphosis. Its wings are weighed down by what appear to be entrails, or an enormous, creeping parasite. The head, a startling mass of human hands, the tangle of fingers appearing like feathers around a non-existent face.

And then it hits you: there’s a giant, square hole in its torso. More hands emerge from the empty space.

The hole forces the viewer to think about the meaning of the sculpture. I would love to have had time to really look at it - it certainly forces you to look at it but when you can only hop on to hop off and go away there's no chance! I liked it a lot!!

Taking a break here. More on Montreal when I get time.