Anywho, we were off around 10am and began our three hour drive to Montreal which is also on the St. Lawerence River so effectively we drove south on highway 20 for three hours and found the next big city in this province. Montreal is actually the biggest city in the Quebec province and they also speak French. And did you know that it was know as “Sin City” because during the prohibition era it had a raging nightlife. Interesting tidbit!
So we found ourselves in town around 1pm and immediately mapped our rental to the famous Schwartz Deli. They opened in 1928 and have been open ever since. They are a historical landmark famous for their corned beef sandwiches which were good! It’s not a sandwich that you order every day so it was a delightful treat.
The storefront is small, with a quick line outside due to its popularity. Their walls are adorned with every magazine article they’ve ever been featured in…and there were a lot! The interior might be from the 80’s if there has ever been a remodel since they opened in 1928. There had to have been, right? It’s a tiny place with tables for 6 packed in so close that if you’re a party of 4, you’re gonna sit with a party of 2 at your table. Yup. They believe in that “we’re all family here” motto!
Afterward we had about two hours to kill before we could check into our next AirBnB so we decided to check out the Notre-Dame Basilica. Many churches are free to enter but this one charged a $14 fee (2023 price). It was a gorgeous cathedral modeled in the gothic revival architecture. What we found interesting was that some of the stained glass images seemed to be of 16th century people meeting the indigenous people. We read online that indeed the stained glass depicts the religious history of Montreal. So they were images of the missionaries essentially just as we had in our California history.
After enjoying their AC and sitting down to rest for a bit, we went out and souvenir shopped until we felt the sweat beading up again we decided to dip back into the van and go check in at our lodging and drop our luggage. We seem to have arrived in a bit of a heat wave…89 today and 91 scheduled for tomorrow. Not fun when you are trying to walk around and sight see, but it is what it is! Thankfully the weather is fine other than the warmth. We have had no smoke up here so wherever those Canadian wildfires are, they aren’t affecting us thankfully.
After dropping our bags, claiming beds, unpacking the snacks, and orienting ourselves on a map, we found that our next two destinations were less than a mile away…but alas! We were tired of the heat and preferred the air conditioned drive so we drove to the McCord Museum which was free on Wednesday nights. They are a museum about Canadian history which was fascinating since none of us have ever been to Canada. There were exhibits on the indigenous cultures all of Canada and their unfair treatment in the past. There was only one indigenous tribe that I had heard of - the Tinglit from a YA book I read. All of the others were names that none of us had heard of in our study of American indigenous tribes. It was all very reminiscent of a very similar US history.
The first photo is of all the locations of the indigenous groups in Canada, and the second is of students who were taken from their families beginning in the late 1800’s and put into boarding schools to learn the language and culture of the dominant culture 😬 Similar to how California has missions that attempted to convert people to their religion, sounds like Canada had the same approach. I caught a photo of this outdoor space outside the museum. Perfect trees for a city street, huh? 😂
Next up was the Museum of Fine Art! Yes, two museums in one evening! We saw yet again an exhibit of indigenous cultures but this time they were from Columbia. There were dozens of urns for cremated remains. Small intricate golden wire trinkets similar to a religious cross that other religions might carry. We were perplexed by the dates missing from all of the exhibits and Todd asked an employee what era these date back to. She replied that the groups that these pieces represent didn’t want dates attached because that signifies a beginning and end while these pieces are alive, and able to be used. So the artist lives on in the piece’s usefulness. Therefore, no dates on anything in the exhibition.
Since it was an evening exhibit, some of the museum was closed off. We may go back tomorrow and check out the other areas. There was a small outdoor jazz festival happening right outside the museum on a closed off street, and despite the happy dancing people, we opted for AC since it’s still nearly 90 outside with 75% humidity. We drove the half mile home and half of use went to the grocery store and half went back to the apartment. The grocery store group grabbed all the necessary fixings for coffee in the morning, and a dinner feast of cheese, bread, and salami. Grams finished off a bottle of wine from last night and the wifi password was shared around. Lots of people did a little virtual work, some people watched a movie called Hitman’s Bodyguard, and others put in their AirPods and listened to their novel about WWII and female spies. That person was me :)
You know this early crew didn’t go to the basilica at night, but here’s a lovely photo from Wikipedia so we can all see how lovely it looks lit up.
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