We will have rain for the second half of our trip, but for this first half, we've had luck: the rains held off and we have what I regard as the perfect Canadian weather! [You will want to tell me that Canada is large and does not have "one weather." This is true, but when I think of Canada in the late spring or early summer, I imagine gusty breezes, a few clouds and a few rays of a strong sun -- which, by the way, stays out until late. Sunset's at 8:40 p.m. today, just a few minutes later than our own sunset in Madison Wisconsin. And this is what we have had and continue to have: my imagined perfect Canadian weather!]
It's really pretty in the Old Montreal at all times of the day, but I especially like it in the morning, when the streets are empty and you can easily drift back in thought to a life once lived here before the advent of all that modernity has brought with it.
Let me say just a few words about Montreal at this point, in case you're not up to speed on your Canadian history. The city is old, but of course, not that old by European standards. The Frenchman Jacques Cartier was the first European to arrive in the 16th century, though the indigenous people -- the Iroquoians -- had been lived here for a very long time. Like 8000 years.
After Cartier's landing (ensuring that the land would be relegated to France as a colony), many years would pass before more Europeans made their way back to the island that was eventually to be Montreal. Initially a fur trading outpost, the settlement expanded, but it wasn't until the middle of the 19th century (1832 to be precise) that it became a city. By then the whole province of Quebec had become a British colony, and Montreal had grown to have 80,000 inhabitants. A newly constructed canal ensured that it would become a major (some would argue the most major) economic hub on the North American continent. [Before the opening of the Lachine canal -- do you see how its name, la-chine, tells us much about the goals of exploration? -- ship navigation from Europe had to stop at Montreal. Without roads and without the water link, Montreal was actually quite isolated from the rest of the continent.] I write all this because you have to look for the old here through the prism of its history, remembering that most of Old Montreal as we see it today really dates back to the beginning of the 19th century. So again, old, but not that old.
I walk back to Olive et Gourmand for breakfast but it's closed today, so I pause instead at the lovely Cafe Tommy. Here, you have to commit to a real sit down breakfast and I do just that. Croissant, egg, the works.
The young family is attending to very important stuff in their neighborhood (like getting Sparrow to a hair cut place, even as he has resisted having this done for months now) and so I continue to explore Old Montreal and the Old Port on my own.
(You have to love that for once, a monument is put up not in honor of a military leader, but of three women chatting. It's titled "les chuchoteuses," or the whisperers.)
There are fantastic walking areas here! You never forget that Montreal is as much a part of the St. Lawrence River as New York is part of the Hudson River as it empties out into the Atlantic Ocean.
As I admire the well tended spaces, the numerous paths, docks and bridges...
... I can't help but think that this is a wonderful place to live if you are destined to live in an urban area. I remember my cab ride into the city just a few days back when the cabbie, who immigrated here some twenty years ago told me how good Montreal has been to his family. I asked if he minded the cold (everyone who is not from Canada just assumes that the country is basically one long winter with a brief pause for spring). He answered bluntly -- that is not a measure of a good city. You're cold, you put on a coat. We have a nice home, the kids go to a good safe school, I have a good job. We love it here.
Lovely indeed!
Right after lunch, some of the young family comes down to Old Montreal for their first look at this part of town (Sandpiper naps, dad stays home to keep an eye on him).
Here's where we can pick up a bit of history: these blocks tell a story, don't they?
And we veer toward the Old Port and of course the big Ferris wheel. Three times around!
Such views!
We are joined now by a couple of my daughter's friends. We all know them well. They're as close as you can get to being family without being related. We hang out together now, so we have morphed from being a group of seven to being a group of nine.
The kids do a few more bouncy things and pick up a couple of lollipops...
... and now Sandpiper joins us!
We all settle in for an early evening aperitif back on the patio of my hotel.
The plan is to eat dinner in a restaurant that's a bit of a trip from Montreal's center. It's Kwizinn Verdun and it's worth the lengthier metro ride. (Of course, for the kids, the metro ride is part of the adventure!)
Kwizinn is casual, but very very special.
The food is Creole, or maybe Haitian, or maybe both. (I have a fantastic sea bass grilled in plantation leaves.)
And there is live island music and the atmosphere is relaxed and jovial and the food is superb.
(Sandpiper moves to the rhythm of the guitar...)
It's late when we ride the metro back to our various destinations. At a changing station, they go that way, I go another way.
And as the train rumbles through the tunnels, I sit back and think how good kids can be when you take them to new places that demand of them so much more patience and fortitude and a completely new way of taking in the world around them. Being in less familiar communities is humbling. And in feeling yourself to be small, maybe your various issues also become small.
Small thoughts on a big day...
Goodnight, with love...
