Montreal Day 2

Montreal is such a fun city!  We really were getting into the swing of things come our second full day and had all sorts of things on the agenda!

 We ate some yummy muffins and bread at the room, then headed to Old Montreal.  We had lots of ideas, but decided to stop off at the Basilica Notre Dame first.  Now, I've been to the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and was a little nervous about not liking this church.  What was I thinking?  Beautiful!

There are two chapels - the main chapel and the Wedding Chapel in the back.  I'll share the Wedding Chapel first.

 The front of the Wedding Chapel.  So light and airy.

  The organ to the back of the Wedding Chapel.  It is above the door to the entrance to the Chapel and faces the alter.

I am a sucker for a spiral staircase!  Isn't the craftmanship gorgeous?  I wanted to walk up it, but had a feeling I would be yelled at.  LOL!

We then went back to the main chapel.  We took a tour of the Chapel with a very nice lady.  She started the tour in the main area, then went to the Wedding Chapel.  For some reason, I like sharing the two chapels in reverse.  ;-)

The organ in the main chapel.  Again, directly above the entrance.  Stunning.  Simply stunning.  I honestly fell in love with this church.  It doesn't hurt that the colors are my favorite - blues, purples, greens, gold.

 The pulpit for the church back before Vatican II.  Another gorgeous spiral staircase.  Originally, there were to be two staircases, one on either side, with four statues.  I believe they ran low on funds, so decided to stick to one staircase.  The wood is just amazing.  Beautiful.

The front of the church.  Simply stunning.  The colors just glow.  I literally lost my breath when we walked into the church initially due to the sheer beauty of it.  The only thing is I'm not a fan of the flooring.  It's new apparently and they went with complimentary colors, but it just screams modern to me.  Eh.  What do I know?

We came outside and oddly enough, there was a Christmas store across the street.  We collect ornaments from vacation, so we checked it out.  They have some strange ideas of what goes on a tree in Canada... Then we went to lunch.  Yea lunch!  Had a lovely veggie sandwich and iced cider.  What is iced cider you ask?  Well, basically, they pick the apples at the peak of freshness, press the juice out, let it sit outside for 6-8 weeks to freeze, and then fermented.  From what I can tell, it was invented just south of Quebec and we had to try it.  So, I had a glass at lunch.  It was yummy!  It was thicker than wine and really sweet.  This little glass lasted me my whole meal!

From lunch, we checked out the Pointe-à-Callière Museum.  They had an exhibit we saw advertised around town and thought it would be interesting.  We first checked out the "basement" of the museum, where they are doing an archeological dig into the original Montreal.  Very interesting.  They even found the site of graves, which was available for viewing.

We even went to the top to look out over Montreal from above.  It was a bit of a dreary day, but eh.  It was fun to get up top and see the city from a different view.  Plus, hubby and I have a habit of going to tall places in the cities we visit to check out the view.

From here, we checked out the gift shop, which was across the street.  Didn't really see anything and headed off to our next adventure, which was the Science Center to see the Indiana Jones exhibit.  I'm not a fan, but the other two were, so we went.  I will say, it was a really creative exhibit.  They had some great interactives I hadn't seen before and I really liked that aspect of it.  And the clothes.  I'm a sucker for a pretty dress behind glass.  ;-)  We also looked at the Cargo area of the Science Center, which was neat.  It was short, but interesting.

Afterwards, we hit the wine bar.  Had a great bottle of wine and tasty app,  but awful service.  Awful, awful service.  It was so bad, it was funny.  Then we wandered down Old Montreal and checked out some tourist shops.  I was looking for a pen.  LOL!  We grabbed a tasty dinner at a place right on the boulevard of Montreal.  I loved it because we ate outside and the temperature was sooo nice.

Then back to the metro to return to the hotel.  But, first some photo ops!

Fountain to the left of City Hall.  City Hall and the fountain were gorgeous!

Downtown Montreal.  Such a nice view.  It was rainy this evening, not bad, but a bit of a shower off and on.  You can tell with all the clouds.  Our hotel is beyond all those buildings.  Good thing we had the metro!

Dorky history stuff.  :-)  See the dirt road with the brick-type "wall" on either side?  That is the old walls to the city.  They are excavating it and I believe you will be able to walk around the city on that path.  It was neat seeing this, especially after seeing the excavation at the Pointe-à-Callière museum.  Montreal is a city that cherishes their history!

Another fun day in Montreal was had by all!