Old Montreal: Charming Streets, Impressive Buildings, and Spectacular Churches

For many people, their first glimpse of Old Montreal is the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal and the Place d'Armes, as these two major attractions are side by side and just a short walk uphill from the Place-d'Armes metro station. There's much more on the basilica below, but first I explored the rest of Old Montreal and the waterfront.

The facade, as viewed from the Place d'Armes, with a monument of Paul de Chomedey, founder of Montreal,
in the righthand foreground.

The Place d'Armes, with the same monument in the center, and the Bank of Montreal behind it.

There is also an interesting set of sculptures on the south side of the square (by which I mean actual south, or even south-west...cardinal directions are, well, difficult in Montreal, as rather amusingly highlighted in this story). They are of an English man with his pug and and a French woman with her poodle, each turning up their nose at the Basilica (symbol of French Canadian religious influence) and the Bank of Montreal (symbol of English economic and political power), respectively. While the people are oblivious to each other, the dogs have spotted each other and look eager to meet. 

One of the most visually striking aspects of Old Montreal is the way old buildings have clearly been subsumed by newer ones, often with multiple iterations.

Montreal--particularly Old Montreal--is perhaps the most "European-looking" North American city.

I meandered down to the waterfront and walked along the Promenade du Vieux-Port before cutting back into the heart of Old Montreal.

City Hall

City Hall, again, from across the street, standing in Place De La Dauversière.

You can't walk anywhere without seeing something of historical interest. One of the more imposing structures--you can see the dome from the waterfront--is the Bonsecours Market (Marché Bonsecours).



It served as Montreal's city hall for about 25 years and the main public market for over a century, in addition to hosting a session of the Parliament of United Canada in 1849.

The market is named after the church across the street, the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel (because clearly having one Notre-Dame isn't enough). Built in 1771, on the site of an even older chapel that burnt down in 1754, it is one of the oldest church buildings in Montreal, and it has a unique personality.

In the 19th century as the port of Montreal grew in importance, sailors frequented the chapel and it came to be regarded as "the Sailors' Church", a tradition commemorated by wooden ship replicas which hang throughout the chapel.

With that, I decided it was time for dinner, which I ate in a swinging egg chair at LOV, a vegetarian and vegan restaurant with some creative dishes.

The next morning I wandered a bit more, including past St. Patrick's Basilica, and then enjoyed a pastry and a pot of rooibus at Olive et Gourmando.

And then, finally, I visited the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal (Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal). It was hard to decide which photos to share, because every direction I looked was simply spectacular.

The pulpit on the right here, is about halfway down the nave. It is intricately sculpted but is no longer used by the preacher.

Unlike most stained glass, and rather similar to the Washington National Cathedral in D.C., the stained glass along the ground floor of both aisles represents scenes from Montreal's history.

I was particularly struck by the stained class in the ceiling.

The organ was built in 1891 by Casavant Frères. After it's 100th-anniversary upgrades, it now has 7,000 pipes.

And here it is again from the outside. Interestingly, despite the overwhelming splendor inside, the exterior is almost sedate for a Gothic or neo-Gothic cathedral.

And that's a wrap on my two brief overnights in Montreal!

Montreal: Marie-Reine-du-Monde and Place du Canada

After a morning wandering around Mount Royal, it started to rain, so I ducked into Café Humble Lion for coffee and a fresh-from-the-oven scone. Once the rain stopped and my feet were rested, I searched around for something nearby to explore quickly before catching the bus back to the airport. I settled on Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde, a minor basilica (all of of the major ones are in Rome) and the seat of the Roman Catholic archdiocese of Montreal, which also borders the Place Du Canada and Dorchester Square.

This cathedral was built to replace the previous cathedral, which burned down in 1852; the ground was broken in 1875 and construction was completed in 1894. Many other churches in the area, such as the Notre-Dame Basilica, were in the neo-Gothic style, but the bishop of Montreal decided instead to build the new cathedral as a scale model of St. Peters Basilica in Rome (at a scale of 1:5), with a few exceptions.

Even the ciborium imitates St. Peter's Baldachin.

This is the view of the cathedral from the Place du Canada, an angle from which the resemblance to St. Peters is perhaps even clearer.

The Macdonald Monument, built to honor Canada's first Prime Minister, is in some ways the focal point for the whole plaza. There's an interesting photo of the sculptor, George Edward Wade, working on the sculpture of Macdonald.

Across the street is Dorchester Square, which together with Place du Canada once made up Dominion Square before the two were officially separated in 1967. There are several monuments in the square including the Wilfrid Laurier Memorial, the back of which shows the provinces of Canada as the trunk of a single tree.

Random fact: the Boer War Memorial is the only equestrian statue in Montreal.

As I wandered around the square, the rain started again, which I took as my cue to catch the next bus to the airport. But I was already looking forward to the next weekend when I'd spend another 24 hours or so wandering the city.

Montreal: Mount Royal

As soon as I decided to spend a few hours in Montreal, on either side of a trip to eastern Canada, I knew I would want to visit Mount Royal. Mount Royal Park is Montreal's equivalent to New York's Central Park (and in fact was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted); it is a green oasis for the city, where residents like to walk, run, bike, and picnic. The name Montreal is generally thought to derive from the name for this small mountain, itself named by Jacques Cartier in 1535.

While Mount Royal is not very tall--arguably more of a hill than a mountain, at all of 764 ft (233 m)--it is quite steep, but the rewards at the top are well worth the climb. Perhaps most famously, it provides panoramic views of the city, the St. Lawrence river, and the other two constituents of the Monteregian Hills beyond.

Here's the full panorama.

This spectacular view is from the courtyard of Chalet du Mont-Royal (Mount Royal Chalet).

Inside the chalet ... there are squirrels! Well squirrel statues of a sort. I've never seen squirrel...well, whatever these are, they're not exactly grotesques (and lacking downspouts, they're certainly not gargoyles), but they have a similar effect.

You can see all sorts of landmarks from up here, but one of the strangest is the Olympic Stadium (which looks a bit like the Starship Enterprise after a crash landing).

There are many other attractions throughout the park, including sculpture gardens, Beaver Lake, and many small trails through more forested sections.

This pretty--but terribly invasive--flower is a creeping bellflower (Campanula rapunculoides).

One of the other major attractions is the Mount Royal Cross. The first cross here was built in 1643, when the colony Ville-Marie narrowly avoided flooding, but the current cross dates to 1924. It is illuminated at night with a system that has been updated over the years from 240 incandescent light bulbs, to a 30-bulb fiber-optic system, to modern LEDs.

I must say, it reminded me quite a bit of the Eiffel Tower.

Having wandered over much of Mount Royal, I descended towards the northeast, passing the Monument to Sir George-Étienne Cartier, a father of Canadian Confederation.

From there I wandered through McGill's campus. I had a few minutes to explore the Redpath Museum and to visit their Gorgosaurus libratus.