La Tour

The place was empty; I only saw a handful of other people the entire visit, including the workers!  I was a bit surprised, seeing as how a similarly-touristy place like The Arch is fairly crowded year-round. 

I bought my ticket and headed to the waiting spot.  The gatekeeper guy asked me where I was from and when I said St. Louis, he started enthusiastically talking about the eggs.  "You know, the eggs to ride to the Arch.  We have a train car, you have the eggs."  Ohhhhh, those eggs!

At this point, the tram car arrived and I had my own personal ride to the top.

The car moved pretty fast, and it was neat to be able to see outside while ascending the 45º angle upwards.  

The view from the top was pretty amazing.  There were windows on all sides, with little binocular stands to see further.  I tried to find our hotel but I think it was too far away.

Seeing the Olympic Park grounds from above was exciting. You can really see the horseshoe crab resemblance to the biodome, how close the stair-step athlete quarters were, and the sheer size of the stadium.

After wandering around and looking out all sides for a while, I was ready to head back down and check out the museum.

(photos by e.hunt)

Mercredi

The next day we walked around the corner to a little coffeeshop, Mon Café.  It was bright and sunny and the guy behind the counter was friendly.  It was here that we experienced our first Montreal bagels!  Apparently it's a thing that they're known for, and I have to say, it was quite good.

After a quick jaunt through the Place Vauquelin (named for a famed French naval officer known for his bravery in The Seven Years' War) right next to City Hall, we made our way around the block to the nearest metro stop.  

I was very much looking forward to riding the métro, having loved the metro culture in Paris.  It was very similar, and I had great fun figuring out how to get to where I needed to be.

Which was Stop Pie-IX on Ligne Verte going towards Honoré-Beaugrand, aka The 1976 Olympic Stadium!

I walked out the door and turned around to see the tower.  The curves, cables, and simplistic shapes were beautiful and awe-inspiring.  I wanted to ride up to the top of the tower and look out on the city and the rest of the Olympic Park below but to do that I had to walk (from #5) all the way around to the opposite corner of the map (#2).

It was a nice day though, a bit overcast and not quite as cold, so I didn't mind the walk.  Dotting the sidewalk every one hundred feet or so were these information boards providing a timeline of the tower construction.  Good exercise and informational!

The Biodome was under construction but the curves and shapes lent themselves really well to the overall design.  I loved seeing the skylight ceiling through the windows.

And then I came upon the newest addition to the grounds: Place Nadia Comaneci, unveiled in 2017 honoring the youngest all-around gymnastic champion, who scored the first perfect ten in Olympic history at age 14.  The age restriction has since been raised to 16.

I had finally made it around to the other side and after many pictures of the monumental tower and surrounding curved buildings, I made my way inside.

(photos by e.hunt, r.hunt, and collected from stm.info.fr)

Le Plateau

Mom decided to stay in the hotel room for the rest of the afternoon while I made the two mile walk up to Le Plateau.  We had read about this area on all the must-see-and-do lists about Montreal, and it was the subject of all my favorite pictures on the many Montreal pages I follow on Instagram.

It's sort of the up and coming part of town, and being in the middle of gentrification, it has lots of cool shops and bars to draw people to the area.  My favorite though is all the little townhouses with staircases from the door to the sidewalk.

This is the area I could see myself living in if I ever end up moving here.  The houses had so much character, and I had a lot of fun strolling down streets and looking at the cute little residences.

It started getting colder as the sun went down, but I was warm in my big coat and from all the walking.  The streets and sidewalks were all pretty clear of snow but I did pass a few alleyways that were completely covered in ice.

The other really neat thing about this area was the abundance of mural art.

There were big ones and lots of small ones in a range of styles, varying levels of detail, and of wildly different subject matter.  My favorite was this one of two figures dancing that look like they're made out of glass or liquid.  The colors just jump out against the flat, black background.

As you can see in some of the pictures, there is some tagging-like graffiti, but the murals were so colorful and captivating that you hardly notice!

After wandering around for an hour or so, I was starting to get tired and a little hungry, so I figured it was time to start heading back to the hotel.  The walk back did not disappoint.

I got back and told Mom about my westward adventure before we decided on a little Italian place for dinner the next block over from the hotel, which was good because I was pretty tired after the 20,000+ steps from earlier in the day!

(photos by e.hunt)

From a Different Era

On our way to the convenience store we happened upon the Notre Dame Basilica, built in the Gothic Revivalist style in the early 1800s. 

It was pretty impressive, but what was most interesting was how it was just in the middle of a downtown square, with skyscrapers and huge, more modern buildings right next to it.

We continued down the street to find this wonderful art deco building towering above us.  The 23-story Aldred Building was completed in 1931, and was the tallest building in the city at the time.  They took advantage of a recently-instated bylaw allowing for taller buildings if they made use of setbacks (which were set at the 8th, 13th, and 16th floors) to allow more light on the street, and reduce overall building mass and risk of overwhelming the space.

The building was made of limestone, as were many other buildings in the area, and the stylized decoration on the stone itself and the aluminum and black glass spandrels between the windows is a key art deco motif.  They often celebrated local flora and fauna, and in this case it is no different, with maple, pine, and oak leaves, stars, and snowflakes making up the symmetrical designs.

After admiring the vertical lines and simple decoration for a while we kept going down the road and saw more interesting buildings, and one facade being redone!

(photos by e.hunt)