Montreal Trip, Part II

Part I here.

After the Hotel de Ville of Montreal, we wandered vaguely towards the Metro station. It was about 4pm, and we weren't quite ready to go back but weren't sure what to do next. Dan suggested going down to the waterfront, so we headed in that direction. When we got there we saw the Science Museum, but it was about to close so that was out. We turned left and walked down the path along the water. There was some kind of island accessible via a pedestrian bridge that looked interesting to me.

Then Charlie spotted the zipline.

The zipline tower looked quite tall, even from a distance. The zipline went out towards the river and seemed to terminate somewhere in the island. Charlie immediately said "I want to do that!!" I wasn’t so sure it was a good idea, but in the interest of keeping the kids moving, we decided to check it out.  As we got close to the tower, we noticed a pair of what seemed like full-size wooden ships on the ground, with an assortment of cables, wood planks rope nets, and other obstacles suspended between the boats. Lots of people were navigating the adventure courses, some of which were way up in the air! They looked like they were having fun.

Kids: “CAN WE GO ON THAT???!!! IT LOOKS AWESOME!!!!!” The zipline was immediately forgotten. Fifteen minutes later, we all had harnesses and helmets and were ready for our adventure. It was pretty late in the day when we started (turns out that we got there about 15 minutes before they stopped letting people in), and you can’t take cameras on the course, so unfortunately the pictures we took were pretty dark even after some attempts at lightening them up.

The adventure course is called Voiles En Voiles (Sails in Sails). Here is a photo I found that shows the course during the daytime: You can also visit their website at voilesenvoiles.com for more photos.

Photo from nowevent.blogspot.com. The zipline tower is in the left background.

There were 5 different courses of varying heights and difficulty. We started on an easy one, about 10 feet off the ground. The highest one was 35 feet high! I wasn’t sure I was up for that. We tackled the first course with Alice in the lead and me in the rear. The courses each started from the deck of one of the two ships. We completed the first course, which was challenging but fun. I made it to the deck just to see Charlie vanishing up the stairs to the upper level. “Wait! Isn’t that the high one??” I called out. No answer. So I followed anyway. Turns out it WAS the high one.

And it was REALLY high! Even though I was wearing a harness, it was still disconcerting to be traversing a sequence of swaying logs so far above the ground. Alice had a moment where I think she regretted her decision to pick that course, but she overcame her fear and we all were proud of conquering the high course. We finished the rest of the courses plus the zipline strung between the two ships. After that, the kids revisited their favorite courses while Dan and I alternated taking photos:

Charlie (near left with brown pants) and Alice (blue pants)

Charlie on the high course (again!)

Alice on the high course

Dan and Alice on the high course

Dan and Alice finishing up a course

Me and Charlie

The kids thought it was great fun to slide using the safety cable

Everyone had a fantastic time. I think for the kids it was the highlight of our entire East Coast adventure so far! We highly recommend it if you’re visiting Montreal in the summer.

After our two hours were up at Voiles en Voiles, we wandered back to Place Jaques-Cartier for a late al fresco dinner that was low on food quality but high on ambience, including a good view of the street performers (who alternated between French and English. It was fascinating). Dan did get some more poutine though.

The next morning before leaving Montreal we walked over to the Bell Centre where the Montreal Canadiens play, and took some photos with the commemorative statues. 

Guy LaFleur

Maurice “The rocket” Richard

Our trip home was marred a bit by a 2-hour border crossing. We never found out why, but there were a ton of vehicles crossing back into the US that clogged up the crossing. That nixed any plans to stop somewhere on our way back, but since a Google Maps detour due to traffic took us right by the New Hampshire border, we decided to add another state to the kids’ list.

New Hamster!

There was an old bridge next to the (relatively) new bridge nearby, so being the geeky structural engineers we are, Dan and I forced Charlie and Alice to go with us to check it out. 

Award for most beautiful steel bridge of 1937!

I was hoping that we would find someplace in Vermont to go for a short foliage walk, but due to the border crossing, we elected to head straight home. I did get a couple of photos out of the car window:

The foliage was not quite peak but still pretty spectacular.

It was a tiring weekend, but so worth it! We all agreed that Montreal was a blast. Full props to Dan for organizing and making it happen. Thanks honey!

Montreal Trip Part I

Back in mid-October the kids had Columbus Day off from school so we took the opportunity to visit Montreal for the three-day weekend. Dan had been to Montreal before (his parents grew up in Montreal and all his siblings were born in Quebec), but Quebec was a new province for the kids and me.

On Saturday we drove up through Massachusetts and Vermont, stopping at Ben and Jerry’s in Waterbury, Vermont along the way. Unfortunately, we got a bit of a late start in the morning, so we were unable to take the factory tour. We did of course get some ice cream though.

Dan and I had cones, while the kids opted for milkshakes.

Not sure if I am Ben and Dan is Jerry, or vice versa

We visited the “Flavor Graveyard”, which was surprisingly hilarious:

Dan was sad while remembering the demise of Rainforest Crunch

I don’t remember this flavor but we loved the Monty Python reference.

We made it to Montreal around 7pm, found our hotel and had some dinner at a local restaurant, where we were greeted with a hearty “Bonsoir!”. While French is the primary language, fortunately almost everyone speaks English. While my conversational French is pretty horrible, one morning I did actually manage to order my McDonald’s breakfast completely in French (“Un café grande avec lait et sucre et un Oeuf McMuffin, s’il vous plait” “Avec jambon ou saucisse?” “Jambon, s’il vous plait”)*

Dan did a great job picking the hotel location, which was within walking distance of Mont Royal and Vieux Montreal (Old Montreal). Alice liked the hotel because it was “fancy”. We had a great view of Downtown and Mont Royal (Royal Mountain, although more of a hill than a mountain) from our room on the 15^th floor:

 The hill in the distance is Mont Royal

View with kid silhouettes:

Alice named this building “The Cat Building”:

Sunday morning we walked to Mont Royal and took the stairs up to the viewing area near the Chateau.

 That’s the Saint-Laurent river in the background.

It was a little breezy up there.

After trekking back down the 400-odd steps (Charlie and I counted them on the way down but we don’t remember the exact number), we walked back to the hotel. On our way we managed to find an entrance to the “Underground City”, which is a bunch of Montreal building basements connected by tunnels. Apparently you can get to a large portion of the city without ever going above ground (very useful in winter!) The part we saw was basically like a ginormous underground shopping mall. We had lunch at one of the food courts. Dan finally got his poutine** (he was hoping to get some during our trip through Ontario, but didn’t get the chance).

Poutine!!

After lunch we took the Metro to the Notre Dame Basilica in the Vieux-Montreal (Old Montreal) quarter, the oldest area in the city. The basilica is fairly nondescript from the outside, but the inside was absolutely breath-taking.

The altar area. 

The whole church was covered in beautiful carvings, gold-painted filigree and the side aisles included numerous stained glass windows and oil paintings. The pipe organ had approximately 7,000 pipes.

Close-up of the altar area

After the basilica, we wandered along the narrow cobblestone streets of Vieux-Montreal, ending up on Place Jaques-Cartier, a plaza including the oldest Montreal monument, Nelson’s Column. Across the street was the Hotel de Ville of Montreal, which I only just now figured out is the Montreal City Hall and not a historic hotel. In front of City Hall there were some gorgeous planting beds:

Alice next to a huge urn made out of plants

The kids and I in front of the Montreal emblem.

 To be continued...
 

*We mostly ate breakfast at Tim Hortons because that’s just what you do in Canada, but by Monday I wanted something a little less donutty. The kids and Dan were at Tim Hortons while I grabbed my own petit déjuner at Mcdonald's.

**Poutine is French fries topped with gravy and cheese curds and is a Quebecois delicacy.

Canada, Eh?

On August 19^th we said goodbye to my Dad and headed out. We crossed over to the Canadian border at Sarnia, located at the southern tip of Lake Huron.

 At the border crossing. Good thing our lane was ouvert and not ferme.

This is how you know you're in Canada.

We of course had to make a stop at a Tim Horton's for donuts, because that's just what you do when you're in Canada:

Mission accomplished!

We drove east to Hamilton, Ontario, located on the west edge of Lake Ontario. We picked Hamilton for its location as a good stopping point on our way to Niagara. It turned out to be a very industrial city, with what looked to be some large steel mills or other heavy manufacturing plants…I just Googled Hamilton and according to Wikipedia, 60% of Canada’s steel is produced in Hamilton, which is known as the Steel Capital of Canada. Well OK then.

That evening we used Yelp and a tourist magazine from the hotel lobby to figure out where to go for dinner. We ended up driving about 20 minutes (this is where we saw all the steel plants) to Hutch’s On The Beach. It was a huge diner-style restaurant serving amazing hamburgers and fish & chips. It was a Wednesday night, but the place was hopping and obviously very popular with the locals. The restaurant was located right off of a lakefront walking path, so we took a walk along the lake after dinner, along with what seemed like most of the residents of Hamilton.

Alice dipping her toes in Lake Ontario.

We found a breakwater to climb on.

On the 20^th we drove to Niagara to see Niagara Falls. Unfortunately the rain and the parking situation were against us, so we weren’t able to get out of the car to view the Falls. We did drive by them though on the Canadian side:

I now understand why people say the Canadian side is better: with the way the Falls are shaped, you only get to see a portion of them from the American side. You get to view the whole thing from the Canadian side.

The rain let up for a bit and we were able to stop at The Whirlpool for a photo op and some smashed pennies:

The yellow contraption in the background is part of an open-air “Aero Car” that crosses over the Whirlpool on cables. There was no way we were getting Alice (nickname: “Freak-out Girl”) on that thing.

 View of the Falls from the border crossing

After entering New York the rain started to come down in earnest. In fact, it was some of the heaviest rain I have ever seen. Fortunately the downpour only lasted about 30 minutes. We continued on I-90 and stayed the night in Utica, NY.

On the 21^st we headed south to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame:

Dan and I have always been big baseball fans, so we enjoyed seeing the tributes to many of our favorite players:

Iron Man!

 Pedro!

The Big Unit!

After Cooperstown, it was the last push to Connecticut and Cheshire. When we arrived we were pretty exhausted, so we ate dinner at the local burger place, unpacked the minimum necessary, and went to bed. And thus ended our cross-country adventures: 20 days, around 4500 miles, 2 countries, 14 states, and 1 province. Whew!