Montreal to Quebec City

We decided to take the train from Montreal to Quebec City as our hotels in both cities were downtown and close to the railway stations and it saved us renting a car until we actually left Quebec.

This proved to be a really excellent decision as it was much less effort getting to/from the stations than the airport plus seats on this train service were like armchairs by comparison to an aeroplane.

It was also good value, our 3.5hr journey on big comfy seats with masses of legroom(which were allocated when booking) was $42.50 each.

Our engine & carriage


As we left the station in Montreal we got a few views looking back at the city. The weather was cloudy in Montreal and it progessively got worse as we approached Quebec so there aren't many good view photos from this journey. However, you get a slightly different perspective from a train, travelling through small villages, seeing peoples backyards, views you don't get from the road.


In this view looking back at downtown you can see Mont Royal rising up behind the buildings on the left-hand side of downtown. This was the first time we had been able to see Mont Royal without actually being up on it as the downtown buildings are built right up to the edge of it so you need to be some distance away to be able to get a view.

Looking forward, we were several carriages back from the front.

As we cross the St Lawrence river, looking East with the Jacque Cartier bridge visiable in the distance

Once we were out in the country it wasn't long before we were treated to nice rural views and some more fall colours. We also noted how different the landscape here is from home - barely a pine tree in sight ! It is the abundance of Maples and Japanese Sumac trees that give the rich colours at this time of year.

Even the rains that are falling and the low, grey cloud didn't detract from the nice scenery

We crossed several good sized rivers and numerous creeks along our journey


As we approached the outskirts of Quebec City we crossed the St Lawrence River. Here you can see the road bridge adjacent to us.

Perhaps our only critisism of travelling by rail was the way the checked-baggage was handled on arrival. It was basically all laid out on the platform in a row and it was then a free-for-all bun-fight to get your cases. This was made worse by certain groups of impatient Americans (who else) pushing so close to the luggage carriage that the baggage handlers were unable to get more bags off. We just stood back and enjoyed the frenzy, but thought it would be pretty annoying if this happens every time !

So this is the view of the station - it was built in 1912 by Canadian Pacific Railway - in a style to mirror the Chateau Frontenac hotel which CPR hoped they would be carrying many passengers for. The station is called Gare du Palais - Palace Station.

Side view of the station

This large fountain sits at the entrance to the station

Along one of the paths near the fountain were numerous metal chairs randomly laid out. Upon the seat of each chair was a quote, poem or statement by a well-known Quebecois. However, there was no signage about the art project and all the Google and Wiki searches I have done have brought nothing. Looking on Google Earth the images do not show the chairs to it's obviously pretty recent and nobody has posted an image of them there either. Perhaps we should be the first ?

This is a close up of one of the seats. I have fed the text into a French-English conversion calculator which gives :
The Man
It Constructed
Thousands
Millions
Of Miles
Of blonde cable

And it has them deal
Millions
Of Thousands
Of Knots
To tie the sea

Possibly one or two lines got lost in translation ?!

Once we arrived in Quebec we were only a 5 minute or so cab ride to our hotel in the Old Town.

Montreal - Mont Royal

Mont Royal is a 500 acre public park attached to the North side of the downtown core. It was laid out by Frederick Law Olsted who also designed Central Park in New York. Its terrain includes a large 'bump' - a 760 feet hill, or mountain as it's actually referred to in Montreal.

At the peak of the hill stands a large illuminated cross which I wasn't able to photograph as it was undergoing renovations. However, while the park was only established in 1876, the first cross was placed on this peak in 1643 by Paul Chomedey du Maisonneuve and a cross has stood there ever since.

While the park offers the usual summer outdoor activities in the winter it becomes a destination for cross-country skiing, snow-shoeing, ice skating and so on.

Almost at the peak of Mont Royal, on the South side overlooking downtown is the Chalet which was built in 1906

This is the view South from the Chalet looking over the downtown core.

While walking in the park I spotted this bird sat up in a tree. I have decided it was probably (and open to correction on this....) a Coopers Hawk. I didn't get a good look at the tail though which seems to be one of the main differences between the species of hawk.

Then the view North West from the Park

St Josephs Oratory

Looking North East from the park

Views to the East from the park

Again looking East with Rue Mont Royal being the main street and the dome is the Stade Olympique which was built for the 1976 Olympics

Looking South East. The brown tower block is the Air Transat headquarters

Sculptures in the park. The mast in the background is the CBC transmitter

Lac aux Castors (Beaver Lake). This has paddle boats in the summer and is an ice rink in the winter.



There were lots and lots of Japanese Sumac trees throughout the Montreal-Quebec City corridor.

More nice early fall colours in Mont Royal

Winter Tyres

During our stay in Quebec Province we noticed a large number of advertisments for people to change their 'all season' tyres on their cars over to 'winter' tyres. Specially designed winter tyres are credited to be considerably safer in icy, snowy and wet mud conditions than so-called 'all season'.

Infact, they are thought to be so much better that starting this year Quebec is the first Province in Canada to introduce mandatory change over to Winter tyres from 15th November until 15th April each year. At the end of April, presumably everybody changes back to their All Seasons.

This television ad currently running on this subject was quite entertaining.

Montreal - Old Town

1639 is generally believed to be the year that a permanent settlement was established on the banks of the St Lawrence River, initially named Ville Marie after the Mission that was built there in 1642, but later renamed Montreal.

Through the 1700's and 1800's the Old Town thrived, but the spread of the city North gradually pulled the commerce out of the historic district eventually leaving an abandonded semi-derelict neighbourhood by the mid 1900's. In 1960 the documented population for Montreal Old Town was less then 200 people. In 1962 Montreal City Planners announced a scheme to tear down the Old Town and build a new elevated expressway along the waterfront. Thankfully, protestors were successful in renegotiating the scheme to push the expressway several blocks North and underground when near the Old Town. This proved to be a turning point for the historic district which has seen renewed enthusiasm with the old buildings restored and a flourishing tourism based economy.

As you walk from the 'new' downtown towards the old you see the transition, with neither particularly new nor old Victorian blocks in between. Here the Victorian office buildings are dominated by the higher new towers behind them


The older buildings with new owners don't entirely shake off their roots.....this building at 100 Rue McGill was built in 1877 for the Hudsons Bay Company and their company name is still inscribed at the top. However, it's now a Van Houtte Coffee Shop with a Bank of Montreal ATM machine !

Also on Rue McGill is Montreals Customs House, built for the Goverment in 1912 and still occupied by them and the same department.

Now well into the Old Town is Place d'Armes. The 'Market Square' or heart of the Old Town it has staged military events, markets and was laid out as a formal garden during Victorian times. It was restored in the 1960's and it's current layout of monument and fountain in the centre adopted.

The South side of Place d'Armes is anchored by the Notre Dame Basilica. A Notre Dame church has been on this site since 1657 but the current building was constructed in 1830 when the original church became too small and had to be replaced. At the time of it's construction it was the largest church in North America.

Here is a short piece of footage of the bells ringing in Notre Dame and of Place d'Armes.

This is a statue of Paul Chomedey de Mainsonneuve in the centre of Place d'Armes, to commemorate a battle he fought & won on this site in 1644, and he is widely heralded as being responsible for establishing Montreal as a city.

The North West corner of Place d'Armes is marked by one of the first head offices for the Bank of Montreal, and still a premises owned by them. The Bank was established in 1817 and this building was built for them in 1859 when the Old Town was still the bustling financial centre of the city.

Further East in the Old Town on Rue Ste Paul is another church the Notre Dame de Bonsecours. This smaller church was built in 1771, but contains a statue of the Virgin Mary dating back to 1657 and was originally housed in the church previously on this site. This church is more commonly known as Eglise des Matelots (Sailor's Church) as locals would come here to pray for a safe passage if they were travelling, or to give thanks for one if they had just arrived in the City. The building in the corner on the left hand side with the red windows is Hotel Pierre du Calvet, the oldest hotel in the city dating back to 1725 and named after a justice of the peace for the city in the mid 1700's.

This is a large statue on the roof of the Notre Dame de Bonsecours overlooking the Old Port to the rear.

This is the Hotel Pierre du Calvet on the corner and a view East along Rue Ste Paul

The view West along Rue Ste Paul

This building was the home of Sir George Etienne-Cartier who was a French-Canadian stateman famed for forming a very successul Anglo-French coalition government in the mid 1800's. He was known to have negotiated with the Hudsons Bay Company to buy the land that is now the North West Territory, he lead establishment of the Provinces of British Columbia and Manitoba and created the Canadian Pacific Railway.

There are stong French influences in the architecture of many buildings in Montreal.

Also on Rue Ste Paul (original the main throughfare before development moved North and West) is Marche Bonsecours. This building not only served as the citys main market receiving goods from the Port directly behind it but it was also a sought after location for balls and galas and even served as City Hall for 25 years. It is no longer a functioning market in the traditional sense, but is home to boutique and other small upscale stores similar to Covent Garden for example. However, it is still a beautiful piece of architecture.


Viewed across the water from Bassin Bonsecours

Finally, on the edge of the Old Town waterfront these two buildings caught my eye. The one of the right, 333 Rue de la Commune Ouest was built in 1858 for a shipping company. There is a marker on the right hand side of the entryway (not visible in the photo) which marks the high point of the massive 1886 flood. The high point is about halfway up the ground floor windows.

While the largest of the buildings in the Old Town are largely restored for tourist appreciation, you still have a sense that this neighbourhood of Montreal is thriving, old warehouses turned into plush loft apartments and trendy offices. It may be graphic designers and successful artisans that now reside in the area rather than stock brokers or bank managers but nonetheless it is obviously once-again an affluent and bustling community.

Montreal 2008

Once again Davids work has required his travel for a conference and this time we decided to make the most of it and create a break away at the same time. The conference was in Montreal so we decided to take a couple of weeks exploring the Province of Quebec.

We were staying at the conference hotel, the Hilton in the Bonaventure Centre in downtown. The Bonaventure Centre (and the hotel) are perhaps the worst piece of architecture in the whole city so I couldn't dedicate a photo to the building as it too closely resembles a 1960's concrete multi-storey carpark.

While the room itself was fine, the layout of the building was ridiculous too. Laid out as a huge quad with a very long walk and several steps from one end to the other and no option to use an elevator with heavy luggage etc unless you are actually going from one separate floor to another.

However, this is the view North up Rue University from the corner of Rue Notre-Dame. The Hilton can be seen on the left hand side.

Our room.

While David was attending the conference and presenting his case-study I took the opportunity to explore the city. Montreal has a main downtown core, adjacent to the Old Town which is a well preserved historic district. This post covers the main sights of the downtown, with the old town images coming in the next post.
Like most of Quebec, Montreal has a deeply religious background so most city squares and main streets are anchored by historic churches or cathedrales.
This one is the Cathedrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde (Mary Queen of the World Cathedral). Built in 1894 it is a quarter-scale replica of St Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City. It was also a bold statement by the Catholic Church to build it in the centre of what was at the time the Protestant heart of the city.

The view South along the West side of the Cathedral.

This statue for Bishop Ignace Bourget who commissioned the construction of the Cathedral but died in 1885 so never saw the finished building.

Dorchester Square honoring Wilfred Laurier, the Prime Minister for Canada from 1896 to 1911.

St Georges Anglican Church

Down on the waterfront, the view from the Old Port leads to Habitat 67, or 2600 Pierre Dupuy Avenue as it's official address is known. This odd looking complex was built for Expo 67 as a famed architectural masterpiece, to house the dignitaries who attended the event and as a long-term goal to provide low-cost housing close to the City. The irony of the development however is that because of it's clever design enabling each apartment unit to have it's own garden and the feeling of a house, plus it's close proximity to the waterfront & downtown means it's now one of the most sought-after and subsequently expensive addresses in Montreal.


This cruise ship, the Crystal Symphony was docked in the port. It had arrived on it's 'New England & Canada' tour which started in New York. It was about to make the return journey.

Fountains in the waterfront park

This is the view North back towards downtown from the Old Port.

Looking South to Ile Ste-Helene which houses the Biosphere built again for Expo 67 and is now the home to a museum of the St Lawrence River,

Looking North towards downtown across Bassin Bonsecours.

The view East showing the Old Port Clock Tower and the Jacques Cartier Bridge behind.

Finally, some beautiful autumnal colours in Bassin Bonsecours. It turned out our trip was perfectly timed to coincide with the fall colours so we had some great sights along our trip - no Photoshopping required here !