Normally, I like to spend the first day in a city wandering around aimlessly, but we decided to do something different here in Montreal and booked The Essential 101 Non-Touristy Walking Tour by Spade & Palacio instead.
There were ten of us on the tour – four Germans and six Americans. Our guide, Gabriela, is an Anglophone Montreal native. We met in the square in front of Notre-Dame Cathedral and learned a little bit about Montreal’s early history, including some of the long-running antagonism between the French and the English, satirically commemorated by these statues of “The English Pug and the French Poodle”, with the accompanying humans turning up their noses at the French-built Basilica and the headquarters of the English-owned Bank of Montreal.
We spent a few minutes inside the Basilica; it is, as you’d expect, gorgeous and spectacular…and crowded.
From the Basilica, we walked through the old financial district (the exteriors of most of the banks have been preserved, but the interiors have been converted to retail, restaurants, offices, and living spaces) to the World Trade Center, which was created by uniting 11 buildings by roofing over the street which separated them. The street was built over the former wall surrounding early Montreal; there’s now a piece of the Berlin Wall mounted there.
We walked through a little bit of the RESO (Montreal’s “underground city”, a network of tunnels connecting much of the downtown area), and then through the ground floor of the Palais des congrès de Montréal and into Chinatown.
Parts of Chinatown were demolished for redevelopment in the 1970’s, and there was a lot of community rebellion to limit the damage and protect the area for the future. Today, the area is an area of “historic significance” and parts are officially provincial “heritage districts”.
We stopped for a bite at Patisserie Bao Bao Dim Sum – they had many, many bao available, but our guide simplified the ordering process by asking “vegetable or pork”? Most of the group, including Diane and me, ordered the vegetable bao; it was quite tasty.
Montreal’s Chinatown is unusual because all four of its gates have survived.
We walked by the East Gate on our way to our next destination, the Quartier des Spectacles, Montreal’s entertainment district…which had been Montreal’s Red Light District until the 1960s, when the mayor decided to clean it up and make it family-friendly. However, it still embraces its history – its official symbol is a red light (or a red splotch on posters), like these under the marquee of the National Theatre School building.
[
We made a brief stop at Le Central Food Hall, which our guide says has outposts of many of the city’s best restaurants, and then it was onward to a very interesting vintage shop, Café Eva-B; we also saw the first of the many murals to be found in the Quartier and the adjacent Plateau district.
We only had five minutes to spend at Eva-B, so we left empty-handed and went uphill to the Plateau and more murals, sculptures, and a final stop for coffee at Café Nocturne, which was crowded with McGill University students doing their homework.
We started exploring on our own – despite all of our stops during the tour, we were hungry. The natural choice was a Montreal smoked meat sandwich at Schwartz’s Deli, a few blocks away. Gabriela had warned us about the line – and she was right.
We persevered; 30 minutes later, we were enjoying our sandwich (singular – the waiter asked whether we wanted one or two and we took the hint).
Because we’d been virtuous, we rewarded ourselves with a trip to Rotisserie Coco Rico (next door) for Pastels de Nata. The Plateau had had large Jewish and Portuguese populations in the early 20th Century, and some of the restaurants of both groups had survived (along with countless Tim Hortons, Indian restaurants, and many other places to fill your stomach).
Now we felt like we had to work off some of our lunch, so we headed for Parc Mont-Royal.
We could have hiked up the hill, but the weather looked menacing, so we decided to walk back to the hotel instead. Our route took us through McGill University and eventually past the Cathedral of Mary, Queen of the World, just a couple of blocks from our hotel (Marriott Montreal Château Champlain, in case you’re wondering) for a rest and, eventually, a light dinner in the hotel lounge.
After dinner, we wandered around the RESO and eventually found our way to Eaton Centre (with an assist from the hotel doorman) for a “vegan gelato” at Qwelli. We walked back to the hotel on surface streets – it only took us about half the time it had taken on the underground route!
