Montreal, Canada - Day 2

 Day two took us up to the summit of Mount Royal, aka Mont Royal aka Mont Real.  Do you get it?  MONT-REAL???

We decided to walk to the famous Grand Staircase of Mount Royal but we decided to stroll through the grounds of McGill University first.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau went here!

Of course, we HAD to walk by the law school! McGill is sometimes called The Harvard of Canada. Or maybe Harvard is called the McGill of the United States?

But our destination was the Rue Peel Steps.  This is where you enter the park via Peel Street and start the long journey up the hundreds of steps to the top of the mountain!

I don't exactly know how many steps there are here. I tried to count, but I lost count somewhere along the way. I read there are anywhere from 300 to 500 steps, but I know it was definitely MORE than 300 because when I lost count, I would start over - and I definitely hit 100 more than 3 times.  Some say there are about 300 wooden steps, which is possible, but you can clearly see these are NOT wooden steps in this picture.  No worries though- even though it's challenging, there are several places you can pull over and take a break or have a drink of water.

At the top, you are greeted by the beautiful Mount Royal Chalet, which was built in 1932

Before we could do ANYTHING, Natalie had to collapse on the ground. She was so sweaty, she left a massive butt angel!  We were so proud!

AHHH.  THERE is the view we were waiting for!  A stunning shot of downtown Montreal with the St. Lawrence River behind it from the Kondiaronk Belvedere terrace.  

The terrace is named for Kondiaronk, who was a leader of the Huron-Wendat Nation of Michillimakinao and helped negotiate the Great Peace of Montreal in 1701, just before he passed away in the same year.  This ended the long war between the French and the First Nations that had gone on for nearly 100 years. (It didn't last though!)

My kids CANNOT be serious, ever.

But they can be pretty cute.  This was after she finally cooled down (but before there was ice cream!)

As I am getting (ahem) older, I had to squint a bit to see who the person on the side of this building was.  From afar (and it is very small from the terrace), I thought it was Frank Sinatra and everyone made fun of me because it was really Leonard Cohen!

When we first drove into Montreal, I couldn't believe how much bigger it was than what I had imagined!  The metropolitan area has about 4.3 million people. But only about 100 years ago, the metro area only had about 775,000 people living here!

After enjoying the hard earned view, we walked back up to the Mont Royal Chalet which is surrounded by tons of beautiful flowers.

The terrace itself is huge, which is good because many tourists were elbowing each other for the best spots to take pictures of the city!  I feel like we are so high up, we are almost in the clouds!

Full stop for more flowers.

While the kids got ice cream, I walked into the chalet.  It's weirdly... empty? There are also dozens of statues of squirrels up in the wooden beam rafters. I appreciate that weirdness.

We had to flee the area around where they sold ice cream though, because MUCH like when we were in Europe, we were being chased (and I mean that literally) by those mean hornets.

Going down the steps was (not surprisingly) much easier than going up!  After our stroll around the top of Mont Royal, we walked back through the city to find some lunch (burritos!)  I spied my friend up close and laughed because no... he does not look anything like Frank Sinatra!

After yummy burritos, everyone was kind of tired so we walked back to the hotel (that's our hotel on the far left). In Phillips Square, there is a monument to King Edward VII.  Although everyone here speaks French, and the signs are always "French first" - you sometimes forget the are a Commonwealth Realm of Great Britain!

Time to head to the roof to hop in the pool!

I think they scared everyone away.  Colleen, why aren't you in the pool?  You know I don't get in unless it's 87 degrees F!  The kids always test the pool for me - is it Mommy Approved?  In this case, it was not.

Instead, I sat out on the balcony and enjoyed the view, trying not to melt because it was VERY warm.

Our hotel overlooked Phillips Square and Hudson's Bay department store, aka "The Bay." The Bay is the flagship store of the Hudson's Bay Company which is the "oldest and longest surviving company in North America" when it was founded in 1670!  This particular department store (as they have several around Canada) actually used to be called Morgan's, and it was built in 1891.  Interesting that it has a flat roof though. Do they not get snow in Montreal?  (Don't answer that, you know that was rhetorical!)

After our pool adventures, we headed out to Pizza Il Focolaio for dinner which was really close to our hotel and every time we walked by, it ALWAYS had a line out the door.

No, you cannot drink our wine, Grant.  Mostly because our poor waiter DROPPED our first bottle (see the caution wet floor sign behind Grant).  Poor guy - he said he had never done that before!

After filling our bellies, we walked back to the hotel and we could see the building that is home to the Canadian Olympic Committee all lit up in Olympic colors! Cheers to another fun day in Montreal!

Montreal, Canada - Day 1

 YOU GUYS... It's only 5 and a half hours from my home but I FINALLY MADE IT TO CANADA! Country #43 for the Bailey's as a collective group. My 49th as a human.

It's only about 2.5 hours to Montreal from Stowe, so it was an easy drive.  Canada, two miles away.

We passed this sign and I literally freaked out.  This is a geography nerd's DREAM SIGN. I actually didn't get a picture of it, and it turns out they don't have the same sign going south on I-89 so I couldn't get a pic on the way home.  But man, this is cool!  And it's crazy to think this was once the northern boundary of the colony of Virginia! (YEP!)

We finally made it to the border after making our way (very carefully) through Smuggler's Notch on our way north out of Stowe.  At the border, we had to show our ArriveCAN app which we used to scan all of our vaccine info, although they didn't even scan our QR code.  They used our passports and the lady said, "Oh yeah, your ArriveCAN stuff is in here."  Really?  Was it? While we waited in line, I saw this monument to the treaty between Canada and the US from 1925. The Canada-United States border is the longest border in the world (good thing we are friends with them!) This treaty completed the international boundary between the two countries, which had been in dispute for some time (as a whole, not just in this location).

We finally made it into the city of Montreal, which is WAY bigger than I expected it to be! Our hotel was easy to find and we were able to check in early before heading out to see a few sights before the end of the day. We spotted this statue in Victoria Square on our way down to the Notre Dame basilica and I made Grant pose like this. I think he was kind of annoyed with me.  I like that his name is in the upper left corner of this picture though.

Our destination was the Basilica of Notre Dame.  You can see it sort of resembles the one in Paris (minus the Rose window) and it's architectural style was the first Gothic Revival church in all of Canada!

I have been waiting to go to this church for a LONG time.  

You'll never believe this, but Todd's great, great grandparents were MARRIED in this church! His great grandfather was baptized here, too.  His great, great grandfather passed away here in 1896, but his great, great grandmother passed away in Boston 1898, so it sounds like they moved to Boston somewhere in between.

This church (but not this particular building) was founded by Jesuit priests in 1642, and expanded when Sulpician priests arrived in 1657.  Construction on the current church started in 1824 when the congregation grew too large for the older church.

While many people are buried in the crypts of other famous Catholic churches, there is only one person buried here:  James O'Donnell, the architect of this church, who was actually Anglican most of his life, converting to Catholicism only a few months before he died.

There have been plenty of famous weddings here though! Celine Dion also married René Angélil here in 1994!

Believe it or not, for over 50 years this was the LARGEST church in all of North America!  It's been passed over by many church since then (particularly the "mega" churches you find in the American heartland). It's still big and can hold roughly 8,000 people for mass!

This wood carved staircase curves around until it reaches the Pulpit of Truth and it's just incredible.

Notre Dame actually became a minor basilica in 1982 when Pope John Paul II elevated it.  I've mentioned this before in other posts but major basilicas only exist in Rome. Every basilica outside of Rome is a minor basilica.

While you are probably more familiar with the OTHER Notre Dame (that one in Paris!), this one is one of the most visited sites in all of Canada. About 11 million people a year visit this church (maybe fewer during COVID!) but that is only about 1 million fewer than those who visit the one in Paris!  This church is actually inspired by Saint Chapelle in Paris, which has a similar blue ceiling.

I like Notre Dame in Paris but it's hard to argue that this is one of the most beautiful churches in the world.

I walked around by myself for a bit (ahhh, so nice for a change) and saw a quiet little chapel called Notre-Dame du Sacré-Cœur.  This was added in 1889 for smaller ceremonies (you know... when the main sanctuary was just too overwhelming.) A fire destroyed most of this chapel in 1978 but it has obviously since been rebuilt.  There are actually a couple of skylights in here, letting in the natural light.

They do a laser light show in here (yep) called Aura and I wish I could have seen that!  I didn't know about it because I think I overpacked my summer and didn't have enough time to do that level of research. Good thing this church does just fine on its own!

There are about 7,000 pipes on this organ, believe it or not, and it dates back to 1891.

It's kind of hard to follow up the great Notre Dame basilica, but we tried.  The English Pug and the French Poodle (aka: The Two Snobs) by Canadian Marc André J. Fortier is a cute set of statues on either end of the block at the Place D'Armes in front of Notre Dame.  This English guy is staring at the (French) Basilica of Notre Dame, a major player in the Catholic Church in French Quebec, while the French woman at the end of the block is turning her nose up at the Bank of Montreal, a "symbol of English power."  Meanwhile, the dogs are looking at each other!

Next door to Notre Dame is the lovely Saint-Sulpice Seminary, which feels very much like it belongs in Europe. Construction began on this building in 1684 and that clock from 1701 is the oldest public clock in North America, the building is the second oldest in all of Montreal, and the gardens directly behind it are the oldest private gardens in North America. Tons of superlatives!

Grant got a kick out of the fact that this coffee shop (which we had apparently seen on one of the travel programs we watch) had "British Empire Building" on the side of it. It was built in 1874.

We decided to walk down to the waterfront area which is bustling with people and sights to see.  Including some weird, half eaten fake fruit on the top of this energy zone hut.

The Old Town area is the section of town that will make you question whether you are in North America or Europe.

Me in Montreal under a flower tree drinking some yummy mango boba tea.  Also: please note that God put my legs on wrong. My left leg should have been my right leg and vice versa (you will always find me standing like this!)

We swung by the IGA for some snacks for the kids, and on our way back to the hotel spotted this cute acrobatic statue.

St. James United Church was a church we passed on our way to dinner, and although it's super pretty, what you can't see is a statue just under the pink and black sign (on the church, to the right in the photo).  It's the same statue that we saw in Capernaum, Israel of a man sleeping on a park bench, one made by Canadian Timothy Schmalz called, "Jesus the Homeless."  

The kids were tired and wanted some alone time, so Todd and I went out to dinner to NYKS Bistro where you KNOW I had to get some poutine with that foie gras sauce!

And you know this had to happen, too.

Whoa, look at that sunset behind Todd!  So pretty! Is the sky on fire??

Lastly, even though I can't stand Jack Daniels, I got a huge kick out of this soap dispenser at NYKS!  I need Makers Mark soap dispensers in my house!  (Of note: The soap was regular soap. It did not smell like JD, thank goodness!) 

It was a great first day in Montreal!