The first picture is of a major street in Montreal - nothing special about the street. The second picture is typical church exterior. There are a lot of churches around the city and they are all unique. The third picture is of the church we visited. This is often where State funerals are held. The 4th picture is of the organ pipe loft in the main church. Although this looks impressive, there are actually 7000 pipes up there. The final picture is of the 20,000 pound bronze piece at the front of the rebuilt chapel of this church. Note the 3 doors and the people looking up at Jesus and the Sun that represents God in this piece.
8/14 Tuesday The weather is wonderful, so we were off to Montreal as planned. The drive up went quickly and with almost no delay at all, we were on their version of Interstate 15. Most of this road is better than many of our roads. I began to wonder why AAA said the roads could be rough in Quebec, but I was to learn more in just a little while. Driving up, we had a little French lesson given to us by signs. Their deer warning looks more like a deer jumping over a fence with legs stretched out in front and back. Sud is south; Nord is North; Est is east; Fin is end; Sortie is exit; Arret is stop; warning of potential ice on a bridge is a car slipping with a thermometer to the side with a big “0” C reminding you of the freezing point.
As for the road, we were driving 100 – really flying in the little car. Oh, Leigh had switched the units from MPH to Kal, so the 100 was about 62 MPH. As for the temp, the 230C turned out to be 720F. Fortunately the little car easily switches from US to Metric through the computer. We had a problem with this in Campobello when we went to the FDR summer place. At that point we couldn’t find how to change the units. Canada appears to grow what we call Cat Tails in the median that blocks headlights of oncoming cars, but it also blocks your ability to see a problem developing that may require your taking defensive action. They do not keep the edges of the roads mowed. By comparison, New York is not a whole lot better, but NY does mow farther from the road; maybe two passes of the mower. The corn crop in this part of Canada is about as tall as that in New York; however, by comparison the corn in VT is much higher and appeared someone could go through and begin picking the VT corn. The Canadian corn appeared weeks away from being ready to harvest.
Most vehicles are like those we see daily in America; most are American models, but they can have a version that is Canadian that does not meet the safety regulations imposed on vehicles sold in America. We saw one of the amphibious vehicles we have come to refer to as ‘Ducks’, but this one was really finished and painted in a unique way. They had fixed it with clear curtains so the operators could enjoy a longer season. I took a picture of this and of a double decker bus that must have come from England; complete with right hand steering. We did see that the large dump trucks had two steering axles. Many of the larger trailer trucks that had Quebec plates had three axles with considerable spacing between each set of tires; maybe as much as 6’.
We visited the Basilique Notre-Dame De Montreal or Notre-Dam Basilica of Montreal. This structure was built in the late 1800’s with various woods used as the interior building material. As result, the acoustics in the building is superb lending the facility for exceptional for various musical events and concerts. The pipe organ in the back has 7,000 pipes with the shortest reported to be only ¼”. There are actually six organists who play this instrument, but the senior organist has been playing this organ for 36 years. Apparently the organ is only played at the five Masses each week. This facility has been used for many State funerals due to the size of the facility and the combined architecture and music that this building offers. Many celebrities have performed there over the years. This would be like saying you performed at Carnegie Hall in NY; great on your Vita.
Behind the main sanctuary is a smaller chapel. It is more for baptisms and smaller weddings. They have a bronze sculpture at the front that weighs 20 tons and raises a little over two stories. It was cast in England and brought over as 32 pieces, then assembled in its present location. I found it a little to ‘modern’ for my taste having been case about 1976. It shows three doors that represent birth, life, and death. The people are of all kinds, but all are reaching up toward God. God is represented as the Sun at the top while Jesus is a little beside and below the portrayal of God. In this facility, they have an organ that has about 1,600 pipes. The building is constructed of wood up to the top of the second level, then a metal roof and skylights cover the top. The metal is covered with Linden wood (a light wood with straight grain) as is most of the chapel. They did use walnut accents and oak for the pews.
Unfortunately, in 1976 someone vandalized this original chapel and threw a candle into a corner of the chancel setting the building on fire. Because the original building was built in about 1890, the wood was dry and burned quickly. The original building was 3-stories tall, but the replacement building was constructed only to be 2-stories high. It took four years from the time the original building burned until they were in the new facility.
Several observations we made include: 1) Where smoking appears to be on the decline in America, in Montreal it is pervasive. It is hard to walk anywhere outside and not be assaulted by second hand smoke; 2) It appears they have about as much trouble with graffiti as does Los Angeles and it appears much of it is just left there with no attempt to clean it off; 3) The roads within the city are quite rough; and 4) Drivers can be quite aggressive. The worst example we saw was one of the postal truck drivers who needed a class in anger management.
Bicycles are everywhere and the riders would squeeze between you and parked cars, frequently running red lights so they had a clear, or clearer, shot at the next block. We saw one fellow who probably cut it a bit too close and clipped a car sending him over the handlebars onto the pavement wearing shorts and a T-shirt; no helmet. The ground really rang his bell! The driver stopped, but the bicyclist tried to ride away only to realize pain was setting in, so he got off the bike and tried to walk away, at which time the driver just continued on his way.
The city is really quite beautiful with many large structures made of stone. Some of the architecture is quite attractive, but in our judgment, other parts of a multi-dwelling building appeared not to belong there at all. A large percentage of the streets are one way making driving a bit challenging. Most of the major areas had timers on the walk lights. In some cases it appeared the green light would begin to flash just before it went to caution giving the driver more time to react. In other cases the green would flash immediately after it changed from red as if to get your attention.
Parking meters are posts with numbers against the buildings; not at the street edge. You put money into a meter kossic that prints a ticket that shows the amount paid and the time the meter expires. This kossic takes change and credit cards. It costs $ .25 for 5-minutes of parking and you can put in up to $6. This is a very bilingual city, so it was not really difficult to find those who could speak English to help us get around.
