Old Montreal (Cold Montreal)

With all the travelling that Tom and I have been lucky enough to do, it has occurred to us that we have not seen much of Canada. Both of us had only stepped foot in three provinces, Alberta, BC and Ontario. We have not even been east across the Alberta border into Saskatchewan!

This weekend past, we can finally add Quebec to our list of Canadian destinations, with a quick trip to Montreal.

First of all, a word of wisdom-- don't book a holiday in Canada in March. Why we thought this would be a good idea? I'm not sure. Although it wasn't too cold on Saturday, it snowed non-stop. Big wet globs that clung to our coats and slowly soaked through. On Sunday, it was SO. COLD. Allegedly -14, but felt like -24 with the wind chill. And it was a strong, bone-chilling wind. And Monday, while slightly better, was about -11, and felt like -19.

Here we go, from the top.

We arrived in Montreal on Friday evening, via Westjet, thanks to a Friends & Family deal through my sister. We hit some turbulence about half-way through the flight and my water spilled everywhere. Tom and I spent the next hour of the flight with wet pants. The remainder of the flight was uneventful, and we headed to our hotel in Old Montreal. We grabbed a pizza dinner, and decided we'd start our sightseeing fresh in the morning.

Old Montreal is beautiful with all the old stone buildings, carvings and bricks. It's a glimpse into some of the oldest buildings in Canada, and by comparison, everything out west is just so very new. We started our morning with a visit to the Basilique Notre-Dame. We went to the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris in 2011, and the two don't quite compare, but it is the most impressive basilica I have seen on Canadian soil!

Notre Dame Basilica of Montreal.

Inside Notre Dame Basilica.

In the afternoon, we walked around to get a feel for the city, and tracked down a famed smoked meat shop, "The Main" for lunch. Many people told us to go to Schwartz's for smoked meat but my googling found a website that proclaimed The Main had higher quality meat. I can't personally compare, but our sandwich at the Main was delicious, and we had three pickles to munch on as well. 

Following lunch, we started to make our way to the McGill University campus, but the snow just seemed to come down thicker and thicker, and our coats were started to become waterlogged. We eventually gave up, and headed back to the hotel to dry off and warm up. 

On our way back to the hotel, about a dozen police vehicles passed us with their sirens blazing. We thought, "Hmmm... That can't be good!" And when we made our way a few more blocks we encountered a wall of people in the midst of giant student protest march. Students, but the thousands, were protesting government austerity. This in itself was interesting, and we stopped to watch for a few minutes. I have never seen a large protest before! My photo below only captures the tail end of it, but the link above has some more representative photos.

 

March 21, 2015 student protest.

We spent the evening pigging out on Mediterranean food and Greek wine. It was as awesome as it sounds. 

Stay tuned for Day 2 and 3-- the rest of the trip!