Montreal

Montreal is still one of my favorite Canadian Cities. You can forget how busy big cities are after living a few years somewhere smaller. The hustle and bustle was particularly noticeable for someone who had just spent a week on a Laurentian lake.

I love walking through the throngs along St Catherine Street Saturday morning or for that matter closer to midnight. The place always seems busy.

We wandered down and along, past the refurbished St James United Church, as far as The Main and savouring the smells of the small markets and restaurants down through Chinatown we headed to Old Montreal. The place still has so much old world charm,  that film production companies often have it stand in, pretending to be some European location.

Get passed the overpriced restaurants on Place Jacques Cartier and ignore the junky souvenir shops and there are treasures here. Tiny bistros hidden away on side streets, streets paved with cobble stones sent over from Europe on sailing ships from Europe as ballast, great old stone buildings, artists tucked up in alley ways and buskers.

We walked back to Pointe St Charles along the Lachine Canal bike path, part of an urban revitalization project that is turning old abandoned factories and work yards into condos and parks.