Bonjour, Montreal

in front of Notre-Dame
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Montreal is a bilingual city. I cannot stress this point enough. Everything, even stop signs, is written is French AND English. I’ve never been in a completely bilingual city before, and it was strange to know that EVERYONE I passed spoke two languages. I never felt like a jerk tourist approaching someone in English, but I did feel like a spectacular under-achiever for only speaking one language myself!

We didn’t arrive with much of an itinerary, we just developed our sightseeing goals as the day went on and we saw signature buildings on postcards or picked up tourist brochures. We started the day in Old Montreal (or Vieux-Montreal), which is full of cobblestone streets and the city’s oldest buildings. Montreal’s Notre-Dame is just fabulous inside -- incredible colors and designs. We also made our way to the Point-a-Calliere museum, where we checked out the underground ruins of the original Montreal settlement. We had lunch in a charming little coffee shop/deli, then walked to the city hall area where we picked up some tourist information. We took the metro to see another Olympic Stadium -- this one from the 1967 games -- and paid way too much for the trip up to the observation tower of “North America’s largest leaning tower” (whatever that means!). Then we took the metro back downtown to the McGill College area and walked all the way back to our hotel via Rue Crescent (tons of shopping and restaurants). We highly recommend the creperie on the corner of Rue Crescent and Rue Saint-Catherine. Then we picked up our car, stopped at the Oratory of Saint Joseph (huge dome in the Northwest corner of the city) and walked up the million and one steps for the beautiful (and free!) view at the top, then got in our car and started off for Maine.

...but I did feel like a spectacular under-achiever for only speaking one language myself!

inside Notre-Dame
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Hope everyone has fun tomorrow on the 4th!