Old Montreal

I spent most of yesterday wandering about Old Montreal, down by the quay of the old port and through the old streets were the neo-Classical buildings, old sites re-cycled as malls and gardens, and many old churches mingle with old warehouses and really pretty streetscapes, galleries etc. I didn't see many shops - I have discovered them since in the more modern part of the city, but I guess because of the weather here, most shops are within malls underground or inside buildings which don't necessarily display any shop fronts to the street. While walking about in the newer sections of Montreal, I haven't bothered to take shots of sky scrapers and contemporary streetscapes.

There are many lovely looking churches scattered about, both Catholic and Protestant, catering to both English- and French-speaking communities, the space around them severely restricted by new development for the most part, and lots of banks. I took a photo of a gorgeous building labelled as Molson's bank, I knew this was a famous brand of Canadian beer, and that owning a brewery was like a licence to print money, but now I wonder which activity funded the other!

McGill University is in the City Centre and there was a street gallery I saw today which I think is associated with the campus showing an outdoor exhibit of then and now photos, on themes like family, work, leisure, housing etc., taken from the 1860's to 1905 contrasted with ones from the 1970's to '90's. What surprised me was how most of the older photos didn't seem dated. One example was the ice hockey team of a school taken at the turn of the century, and the boys looked much more modern than a school footy team taken in Melbourne at the same time would have looked, from the glasses to the haircuts to the faces.

See the little slide show below: I apologise for a couple of the pics which are dark but it is just a quick overview. I have since been back and looked at some galleries and more little streets, old buildings and cafes, and it is indeed a very pleasant spot, particularly on a sunny day.. It seems very busy on the weekend.


I tried very hard to insert a slide show here - perhaps because of limitations in the hotel's network access, I never got it to work. So I tried posting 2 sets of photos: from Emily's computer, but this failed also. Will try one more time but not much point to this post without the visuals! Eventually, I have settled for pointing you to the Picasa album, this time from NYC on Ben's computer: I suggest you view it as a slide show. Here is the link:

http://picasaweb.google.com/bjoymarsh/OldMontrealSeptember07