This will be a short entry as we are only in Montreal for two sleeps. But our next stop in Quebec City, and I suspect there will be more to talk about there. 

We arrived in Montreal at noon on Thursday . Montreal was discovered by Jacques Cartier in 1534 when he was looking for a shortcut to the Orient and took a wrong turn. He landed on an island in the St. Lawrence River that he named Mont Royal. I'm embarrassed to say that I didn't know Montreal is an island (technically a group of islands). Roger knew, of course. Mr. Geography! ;-)

As we couldn't check into our auberge (inn) until around 3, we swung by St. Joseph's Oratory while we had the car and some time. St. Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal is Canada's largest church and a National Historic Site. It was started in 1904 by Saint André Bessette as a small chapel on the slopes of Mont Royal near Notre Dame College. Saint André was a healer, and there are many crutches hung on the walls from people who were healed. In 1917, a larger church was completed to service the growing congregation and, in 1924, the basilica was started and finally completed in 1967. It is huge, complete with several escalators and an elevator that takes you to the basilica at the top on the 6th story . The inside of the church itself is impressive for a modern style church. It's not ornate - mainly concrete and wood.

Getting to our auberge was a bit of a challenge, as there was a festival on our street, and there seems to be construction everywhere. We checked into Auberge le Jardin d'Antoine on rue St-Denis where, as Roger said, you can't swing a cat without hitting a pub or cafe. Our Auberge is in a 1892 graystone townhouse in the Latin Quarter. We walked to Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal) as a heavy rainshower hit and continued off and on for the rest of the afternoon and early evening. But we braved the elements, walking thru much of Vieux Montreal (the old city), stopping at a pub for drinks and, of course, a Montreal smoked meat sandwich.

Friday was a much nicer day weather-wise. We continued our exploration of Vieux Montreal and Vieux Port (the old port). The pictures can speak for themselves. 

A note about the hospitality here. We had heard and read about the tensions between the French and English, and about locals not being willing to speak English to tourists. We didn't experience that at all. We used French to the best of our ability but, once they start at you in full-speed French, it's tough to keep up so we have to resort to English. It hasn't been a problem at all. And everything is in French here with little written English translation, although many menus have both languages in the tourist areas.

We are on the road again. On the way out of town we stopped at the Biosphere, on Ile-Sainte-Helene. The Biosphere was the U.S. Pavilion in the 1967 World Fair, and is now an environmental museum. Then we are off to Quebec City.