Wednesday 19th May – Montreal, Quebec – Ottawa, Ontario

Wow we have been here for a month, but it feels so much longer. In this time we have only had one full day of relaxation and a couple of half days like yesterday doing chores, washing blogs etc, and the rest of the time has been jammed packed full of activities and of course the hours clocked up on the road.
Anyways, today we went on the metro into the old part of Montreal I was hoping to see another glorious old Quebec but I was so so disappointed in this place with hundreds of messy souvenir shops and expensive restaurants. In comparison with Quebec the old buildings and streets have not been restored to anywhere near the same level, throw in the new buildings dotted around for bad measure and the place just didn’t quite do it for us. It made us feel quite flat. On a brighter note was a fabulous church that we went to, it literally took my breath away when entering it. This was the Notre-Dame Basilica which was a modest wooden building until 1672 when they reconstructed it with stone and had a couple of extensions (and converted to Catholicism) in the 1800s. We then went to Pointe-Calliere, birthplace of Montreal, this museum is named a National Historic site, which protects authentic underground archaeological treasures. We learnt a lot about the beginning and changes to Montreal and how the French arrived closely followed by the Poms. For sure you can feel the under-current today between the French and English speaking facets. We hopped back on the metro to visit the 1968 Olympic Stadium and the Botanical Gardens and again both not very tidy and a little run down. We took the elevator all the way to the top where the views were spectacular. The stadium would have been amazing in its day and don’t get me wrong it’s still pretty impressive now its just a shame they don’t try and keep it tidy since so many people visit it. The Gardens were same/same… great potential but not the pristine care taken that you would expect of a great site.
From here we decided to make the (150 miles) shortish haul down to Ottawa to see if Susan and Peter were correct. This all made for a long day mind you.