Sonya's Blog - Day 57 - Le Vieux Montreal

Sonya’s Blog - Day 57 - August 18th - Exploring Old Montréal

Blake had discovered that a train leaves from Candiac and takes us right downtown and the best part about this train is the station is 5 minutes from our campsite. The only thing was that at 8 AM he realized that there was a train that left at 9 AM and then the next one wasn’t until 10:30 AM. We didn’t want to leave it that late so we really had to hustle the kids to get their act together so we could catch that 9 AM train. We managed to get out the door by 8:40 and arrived at the station at 8:45. I figured we had lots of time, but Blake had looked at the wrong time on the website and the train was leaving at 8:50 AM and we still had no tickets. He rushed to buy tickets while I locked up the truck. We thought he had everything all figured out and we rushed on the train, but while Blake was going to the train the attendant called him back because he was supposed to scan the tickets. As it turned out he bought the wrong ticket, they do not have group tickets here like they do in Toronto. He thought he bought a ticket for 6, but it was just for one person, 6 rides. The train had to leave so the attendant said it was fine and off we went. When we got to the stop at the end of the line, which is actually at the Bell Centre we went and tried to figure out the tickets so that we could all have tickets for the way back. The machines are quite confusing and while there was an attendant at Candiac, he didn’t sell the tickets he only radioed the driver when everyone was on board and the platform was clear. We went to the machines in the Bell Centre, but then I noticed there was a ticket seller so Blake went to talk to him. We ended up getting 3 tickets that are good for 6 rides each, Isaac is free because he is 11 and 11 and under rides for free. So only Natasha and I rode illegally on the way there. Now that we all have passes, we just have to scan them right before we board the train which will make it so much better.

We headed out of the train station and decided to walk to Vieux Montréal, which was about 2.5 KM from the Bell Centre. We finally got to where we wanted to be after many blocks, but we did not find the cobblestone street walking only part for a little bit. We stopped at a café for a snack and discovered that in Montréal they still allow smoking on the patios:( We went inside, but it wasn’t really what we wanted so we continued on our way to find something a little more unique. We didn’t end up going too far and we found a really neat cafe that had original dishes and great atmosphere. It also had a little shop joined to it that had all sorts of kitschy things and was fun to look through. We had an excellent small meal, the food and drinks were excellent. The only issue was that it was in a very old building and there was no air conditioning and it was stifling hot outside and inside by this time. We continued on our way and found the cobblestone streets of Vieux Montreal and had a good look around:

Lots of touristy stores, but also some unique little shops as well and tons of restaurants. We had fun popping in and out of shops and looking at all the old buildings in that area. Soon it was time to eat again and we chose Montreal Poutine as our stop. They had a great courtyard area for us to have lunch in and it was shaded. It was really hot by this time, but at least we were out of the sun. We ordered some poutine and smoked meat and had a small feast, but not a healthy feast. It was all very tasty and filling. Picture from restaurant:

We then explored some more and came upon the old Market building that has been revitalized and it a market area again. Inside there were lots of unique little shops and places to eat so we explored that for a good hour or so. When we were done there we decided to start making our way back to the Bell Centre. We headed towards the Notre Dame Basillica and wanted to pop in and have a look, but you have to pay for admission and there was a long line so we continued on our way. We crossed the street and there is a nice little square there and the Bank of Montreal building is on the other side of the street. This is the oldest bank building in Canada and it had a small museum, admission was free. So we popped in there instead. What a great building. We had a good look around and then went into the museum. They had displays of money and a history or banking in Canada as well as counterfeit bills. The money was interesting as I didn’t realize that prior to central banking each bank issued it’s own bills. When the bank of Canada started issuing bill in 1935 or something, they gave the banks 15 years to get their bills out of circulation, but they could only print new bills for the next 10. They had examples of the early bills from the Bank of Montreal, some bills from The Dominion of Canada and then a history of bills from the Bank of Canada. It was a neat little museum and a great old bank.

We continued on our way and Blake and Natasha decided we should try and find our way back to the Bell Centre using the underground tunnel system. Blake had looked it up and according to what he read if we entered this one building we should be able to get all the way to The Bell Centre underground. It all started out well, but it was very convoluted and confusing. We had to keep checking the map to make sure we were going the right way and we thought there would be more shops as Montreal is supposed to have the largest underground mall. Mostly it was just tunnels, but sometimes we had to go back upstairs and over plus 15’s and then all the way back down to a new tunnel. We managed to make it to Canada Place or something and then couldn’t find our next tunnel so ended up coming to the street. We were only a block and a half away at that point, but it took forever. We finally managed to make it to the train station and our train was leaving in 5 minutes so it ended up being great timing.

Once we got back to camp we had a huge welcome back from Kizmet who we then walked. We discovered that the tenting area of this campground goes along a small creek area and it is lower than the rest of the campground. This is good because there was only a couple of tents up and the rest was just empty space so we were able to let Kizmet off leash and she had a really good run and a dip in the stream. She was so happy to be running around, she was a little manic. We then prepared some supper and hung out for the rest of the night.

Talk to you later,

Sonya