Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Montreal strikes me as an especially difficult city to drive
in, a quality it shares with New York City. At least that was my impression
back in 1990 and then again in 2005 when I passed through on the highway to go skiing
at Mont Tremblant. It hasn’t gotten any easier for someone who still uses maps
rather than GPS. Well, I’ve started using GPS on my mobile phone, but I didn’t
buy an expensive data plan for Canada, so I’m using paper maps here. I knew
geographically all along where I was heading, but between limited highway off
ramps and one-way streets getting there was another story.
Home for four nights and three days was hostel accommodation
named ZUM Hotel in a high-rise dorm at the University of Montreal on the back
side of Mount Royal. Talk about an ugly building, though! For about $40 U.S./night
I can’t complain. It’s near a Metro station and fine for me that it’s not in
the heart of the action since I don’t do nightlife anyway. I’ve stayed in dorms
as hostel accommodation a few times before in Canada and also in Scotland and
find it adequate.
I don’t mind sharing a bathroom if I have my own room.
Montreal is technically built on an island since a smaller
branch of the Saint Lawrence passes to its north separating it from the main
part of Quebec as well as the river’s eastern shore. Somewhere toward the middle of this island is
a 700-foot-high hill named Mount Royal, most of which is taken up by parkland
and two enormous cemeteries. A city with some topography is always impressive.
There are only a few other cities in the world like Hong Kong, San Francisco,
Los Angeles, and Vancouver where you can look down from the city’s natural high
point onto its downtown skyscrapers. Other cities with nearby mountains like
Barcelona, Rio de Janeiro, and Cape Town from which there are great views of
the urban area are regularly listed as among the world’s most beautiful. This altitude
(Montrealers insist it’s a mountain, not a hill) is one of the qualities along
with the river that gives Montreal its unique character. The park’s overlooks
of the city as well as its recreational facilities are fantastic.
And if Mount
Royal Park gets compared with New York’s Central Park it’s with good reason
since they were both designed by Frederick Law Olmsted.
On the back side of the mountain, which would be the side facing
west, is one of Montreal’s star attractions. Saint Joseph’s Oratory is said to
be the largest church in Canada and the biggest shrine in the world dedicated
to Jesus’s earthly daddy. They say about two million tourists and pilgrims visit
the shrine annually, but I must have hit it on a slow day since I had the place
mostly to myself.
Saint Joseph’s Oratory is one of those twentieth century
churches that’s more impressive in its sheer size than for its artwork. Although
there’s a wow factor because of its size The Roman Catholic Church has the
money to build big since modern construction methods and materials have reduced
the cost of constructing a vast open space. But the kind of craftmanship that
went into the details and ornamentation of churches built before the last
century either no longer exists or would be too expensive to employ to create
the masterpieces of the past that are on display in the churches built in the
18th and 19th centuries around Montreal.
2025-05-23