We managed to drive all the way to our hotel in Montreal without going on multi-lane fast freeways! We were only on a long three-lane section as we approached the center of the city, but it was block by block slow-moving traffic. Much better. John did a great job find a route that didn’t stress me out.

We left our hotel at 11 and pulled into a park in Repentigny about noon. We wandered around the park for a half hour and then sat in the truck and relaxed for another half hour. It was a short distance to drive to Montreal, with nothing I could find to see along the way, and we did not want to arrive too early. We were really hoping, if we could not check in on arrival, that we could at least park the truck.

Driving into the city to find our hotel.

We arrived at 2 and the hotel had our room ready so we were able to freshen up before heading out to walk to Old Town, which was about 15-20 minutes straight down toward the river from the hotel.

The views of the city and the courtyard from our room on the 6th floor of the Courtyard Marriott.

We had a good walk, looking at all the old buildings and wandering the cobblestone streets, but I must say I prefer Old Town Quebec City. There is more of interest to see there with the Plains of Abraham, the Citadel, Martello Towers and the promenade along the front of the Chateau Frontenac – and all that history to read about – as well as old buildings and cobblestone streets. And Quebec seems to have a more ‘preserved and contained’ old section. Montreal has more modern buildings – or modern-ish ones – intermingled with the old ones. Could be just me though, so don’t let it stop you from visiting if you get the chance.

Consequently this blog is a lot of photos of old buildings, almost none of which I can identify.

I love how the stone from the house still shows the shape. Also there is a higher roofline, several windows and an archway in the brick.

Basilica of Notre Dame. We plan to go there tomorrow.

Head offices of the Bank of Monteal.

This monument in memory of Paul Chomedey de Maisnoneuve, founder of Montreal, was unveiled on July 1, 1895, as part of the celebrations for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the city on May 31, 1642. The project was announced in 1891 but not completed and unveiled until 1895. It sits in the middle of Place d’Armes, the square in front of the Notre Dame Basilica.

British Empire Building – now offices and shops.

I like the change of eras looking down the street from old to new.

There is a huge three-level mall under the buildings. They connected the street-level ones with a glass roof and walkways and built underground. We only walked partway into the street level.

The graffiti on this section of the Berlin Wall that was sent to Montreal was done in Berlin. As the wall was broken down in sections people wrote on them or created specific art projects on them. It was an outpouring of joy and also a political statment. We saw lots of them when we were in Berlin at the location of the former wall.

A courtyard in the mall had this gorgeous infinity pool in it.

Even though the water flows off the entire surface of the pool it was very quiet.

I needed to rest my feet and achy hips from all the concrete so we headed back to our room to rest up a bit before supper.