Churches of Montreal

Basilique Notre Dame is the most famous church in Montreal, which is internationally known for its fantastic interior. The interior is covered with vivid blue and gold stars.  The church was founded in 1672 but has undergone renovations making it the "newest" of all Montreal churches.

There was a line of people waiting to go in...

It's hard to find words to describe the beauty of the interior.  It took my breath away!

Close-up of the Last Supper carving on the altar...

The pulpit

The organ was built in 1891 and has been modified a few times.  It now has 4 keyboards, 99 stops and approximately 7,000 pipes.

The pipe organ

One of the confessionals

Saint Joseph's Oratory is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine.  It is Canada's largest church and the twenty-seventh largest church building in the world.  The dome is the 3rd largest of its kind in the world. The Oratory has six levels. It was founded by Brother Andre in 1904 and dedicated to St. Joseph to whom he credited all his reported miracles. Brother Andre was canonized in October 2010.  More than 2 million pilgrims visit the Oratory every year.

There are 283 stairs from the street to the Oratory. There are 99 stairs in the middle reserved for pilgrims who wish to climb on their knees.

Brother Andre

There is a devotional area with several carvings of St. Joseph and thousands of candles.

The central lampstand in front of the statue of St. Joseph holds 3,500 votive candles.

In the devotional area there are two walls filled with canes and crutches representing people who were healed.

Outside there is a beautiful garden featuring Stations of the Cross.

St. Patrick's Basilica is one of Montreal's best churches. Founded in 1843, it has preserved its original interior with minimum renovation.  It was built to serve the needs of Irish immigrants who came to Montreal in great numbers due to the famine and other troubles in Ireland.  Today it is the mother church of the English-speaking Catholics of greater Montreal. 

Close-up of the Altar

The pulpit

Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral is a minor basilica in Montreal and the third largest church in Quebec.  It was built in two stages from 1875 to 1894.  It is meant to be a scaled down version of the St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.  It covers approximately 1/4 the area of St. Peter's Basilica.

Instead of the statues of the 12 apostles on the façade of St. Peter's, the front of the cathedral is topped by statues of the patron saints of 13 parishes of Montreal who donated them. 

Covering the altar is a neo-baroque ciborium or baldaquin, with twisting columns.  It was created in Rome in 1900 and is a reproduction of the baldacchino in St. Peter's.  It is fully hand-made and made with red copper and gold leaf. 

The ceiling

The Bishops' Mortuary Chapel

The churches we saw in Montreal were all beautiful. 

More on Montreal and Quebec City in my next posts.

Montreal Trolley Tour

Montreal is the largest city in Canada's Quebec province.  It is set on an island in the Saint Lawrence River and named after Mt. Royal, the triple-peaked hill at its heart.  It's many neighborhoods have very diverse types of architecture.  It is the 2nd largest French speaking city in the world after Paris.  It has a population of close to 2 million and the population including the metropolitan area is close to 4 million. 

We decided the best way to get to know Montreal was to take a narrated trolley tour.  It was a hop on hop off tour that we rode from beginning to end (2 hours) then rode again and got off at points of interest that we wanted to see.

Here are some highlights of the trolley tour...

Mary Queen of the World Cathedral

Montreal Convention & Exhibition Center - Palais des Congres

Notre-Dame Basilica (Yes, we stood in line for tickets! More later)

Chinatown

Chinatown

The Walk for Peace with flags from over 200 countries 

An interesting fact about Montreal is that there were very few single family homes.  Apartment buildings big and small are in all parts of the city.  We did see a street of single family homes across the street from McGill University that reminded us of Swiss chalets.

Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mont Royal

The jewel of Montreal's city parks is Mont Royal.  It has a lake, plenty of space for activities and you can take a bottle of wine to enjoy with your picnic, but you must eat a meal with the wine.  Chips or nuts do not count!

View from top of Mont Royal

View from Mont Royal with Olympic Stadium in the distance

On top of Mont Royal!

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts

The Village is the largest gay village in North America in terms of area.  Suspended over the main street are 170,000 balls representing the colors of the Gay Pride Flag.

Apartment building in The Village

The Village Main Street

More on Montreal in my next post!

O Canada!

On July 18 we headed out for Canada.  On the way up we saw farmhouses, barns, rolling hills, and...

Amish!  We never knew there were so many Amish in the United States

Before letting us cross into Canada the border guards had us pull over and did a thorough inspection.  They checked the truck and even had us open the RV slides.  They took about 20 minutes checking things out.  Our neighbors in the RV park are from Ohio and they said they were not stopped at the border.  Maybe it was our Texas license plate.  Did they think we were smugglers?

Speed limit is 100...kilometers per hour (approx. 60 mph)

Don't know why they're thanking us!

Look what they grow in Canada--corn!

By mid-afternoon we arrived at our home for the next month, Camping La Cle des Champs Complexe VR.  This RV park is located in Saint-Phillippe, Quebec which is one of several towns just across the St. Lawrence River from Montreal.  The RV park has approximately 250 developed sites for RVers who spend the summer here.  Those sites are privately owned, beautifully landscaped, and paved.  Each site has a 4-person glider, a large glass topped outdoor dining set, and storage room.  Many people have built screened rooms on their site in which they have a TV, living room, a small kitchen and dining area.  We are in the Voyagers section where there are about 50 sites, each with a paved patio, 3 person swing, and a small outdoor dining set.

Our site

We had read that Montreal and the surrounding area have LOTS of bike paths so one of the first things we did was go for a bike ride.  We found a paved bike path in a park that runs alongside the St. Lawrence River.  The path even crosses the river into Montreal but we didn't go that far because that would have been a very long bike ride.  We rode 13 miles that day.  The bike path we rode on is the small white strip of land on the right side of the river.  We rode up to the first highway intersection.

Pictures from our ride...

Town of Candiac to the right of the bike path

Montreal skyline across the river from bike path

After the ride we needed to find a bathroom.  That wasn't difficult because every town, no matter how small, has multiple parks.  The winters are so cold here that when warm weather comes people try to be outdoors as much as possible and all the parks and bike paths encourage outdoor activities.

Beautifully landscaped part

Time to buy groceries!  We went into a little market and it was wonderful!  Lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, meat, cheese, and an in-store bakery.  We bought a few things there but also had to go to Walmart to buy some RV supplies. 

Signs in Walmart...

No Skippy or Jiff peanut butter

Some things we've learned since being here...

Gas stations and most restaurants don't sell fountain sodas.  In fact, there are very few fast food restaurants.

There are also very few bars.  Lunch in some restaurants are leisurely, accompanied by 1 or 2 bottles of wine.

They don't use pennies.  They round everything to the nearest nickel.

When riding an escalator keep to your right!  The left side is for people walking up the escalator.

"Sortie" means "exit."  Good to know when your trying to find your way out of the underground metro stations.

Bagels here are delicious!  They have a slightly sweeter flavor than bagels back home.

Next post will be on touring Montreal.