Another night on the St Lawrence River and another 90 miles upstream to the city of Montréal – the second largest city in Canada – but I have to say my least favourite port of call to date on this cruise.
Montreal sits at the confluence of the St Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers and geographically is as close to the European coast as to Vancouver – that just brings home how huge Canada is – the 2nd largest landmass in this world!! Founded in 1642 by French Catholics it became one of Canada’s first great trading centres. Today Montréal remains a commercial centre commanding the locks thatconnect the St Lawrence River with the Great Lakes. About 70% of the 3m population are of French descent, another 15% have British ancestry and therest derive from a wide variety of ethnic groups, including Italian, Greeks, Eastern European, South American and Chinese – Montréal has a substantial China Town section. Originally named ‘Ville Marie’ some historians contend that the city takes its name from ‘Mont-Réal’ (Mount Royal) – the 767ft, three-head hill that stands to the north west of this city that sits on the southern shore of the St Lawrence River and occupies a 30-mile long island. Apart from the cobbled streets in the Vieux (Old port district) the city is set on a grid pattern with the Rue Saint-Antoine running the entire length of the island.
The cruise handbook describes Montréal as combining “the finest aspects of the two continents (Europe and North America). Its North American skyline of glass and concrete (Rather less impressive than Calgary or Vancouver in my view) rise above churches and monuments in a blend of European styles as varied as the Montréal’s social mix.” The cruise handbook tells me that the city was ranked as the tenth cleanest city in the world in 2007, not an accolade that was easily recognisable to me this morning as I set out on an exploration of the city – lots of litter, sleeping tramps and vagrants scores of commuters shuffling their way from the Metro to downtown offices and cyclists – they like their bikes here and have a public bike hire system as in London – who think they have the right of way everywhere, including the sidewalks and leave their machines chained to any post of other upright object in a tangled mass of wheels, handlebars and seats!
I wish I could say it was the grey overcast morning that gave rise to my poor impression of Montréal but after nearly 2 hours of wandering round I found little to marvel at - quite the contrary I found it a rather soulless and desolate place of boring concrete and bricks and how itever won the right to stage the 1976 Olympics will forever remain a mystery to me – although Peg and I had a very interesting and rewarding trip in the afternoon to the Olympic site but more of that in another posting.
Unfortunately I didn’t enter the Basilica, which proved to be a mistake but having failed to find shops on the main street of Rue St. Catherine I suddenly remembered that a fellow passenger had told me that because of the severe winters many of he shops are located in subterranean caverns!! After a couple of false starts I eventually found my way into this vast complex underground but sadly it proved to be as equally drab and uninviting although I did have a rather good cup of coffee! One thing the caverns did have was a vast range of cuisines on offer from Lebanese, Mexican, Thai, Chinese, French and of course the inevitable Poutine (Chips with cheese curds and beef gravy).
Again my guidebook describes this complex - rather optimistically in my opinion as a ‘hotbed of fashion’ – I found the clothing on offer very conservative in drab shadowy yellows and greens – nothing bright to lighten the subterranean dullness and not a patch on the fashion conscious Chinese in Shanghai!
Disappointed I walked back to the ship hoping for better in the afternoon when Peg and I were to visit the Olympic site.
No comments:
Post a Comment