I have visited both Quebec and Montreal twice before and figured there probably was not a lot that was new in the “old town” area of each city. Since I have been spending so much time in the car I was looking for opportunities to walk in both cities. In Quebec the Montmorency Falls Park fulfilled that need so, in Montreal, I decided to spend some time walking around the Mont Royal area and Mont Royal Park.
The Mont Royal area includes a huge shrine, St. Joseph’s Oratory, the dome of which is second only to St. Peter’s in Rome in terms of its height. The park itself encompasses three hills west of downtown Montreal and provides history, great views of the city , bike paths, trails, a lake etc. There are also several cemeteries on the edge of the park which reveal the different ethnic groups and history of the city. I spent a wonderfully sunny morning exploring the neighborhood and enjoying a relaxing patio lunch before departing for Ottawa.
The drive to Ottawa was smooth. The Trans-Canada Highway joins the two cities but I elected to take 2-lane highway 17 for much of the way. This provided some pleasant scenery of lakes, although little is visible from my on-board camera, and avoided significant roadworks on the Trans-Canada Highway.
Ottawa is Canada’s 4th largest metropolitan area by population and the only Canadian city in the top 8 that I had not visited (i.e. spent at least one night). My impressions, so far, are very favorable as I was able to walk just 300 m down the road from my hotel to Elgin street and find a good pub for dinner. I will spend two nights here and hope not to have to get back in the car until Saturday.
Today’s map and video are here.
St. Josephs Oratory
Notre-Dame-des-Neiges Cemetery
View of Montreal from Mont Royal Park
You’re a really good photographer. Love the Montreal pix , Montmorency Falls, Acadia National Park (where Rita and I were roaming all over just a few weeks ago) and Cape Cod.
Keep driving, mate! As I said earlier, there’s a book lurking at the end of it.
G
Thanks, I just take what appeals to me and then crop and reduce to web-size in Photoshop.
Cheers, Steve.
From my one-line diary for 17th August 1967:
“French-Canadian breakfast. Expo 67. To Ottawa. Swimming.”
There are more questions than answers. What I can say is that my dad must have driven your route in a Chrysler Newport which was ENORMOUS (compared to a Cortina mark 1).
I had never heard of a Chrysler Newport and had to look it up on Wikipedia. Difficult to judge its size from their photo but it was built on the same platform as a Plymouth Fury and I watched many of those monsters wallow around Silverstone in the late sixties.