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A day trip to Montreal, June 2001

Montreal in a nutshell

Tvor
2005-08-29 18:39:17

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While on a trip to Ottawa and Kingston, Ontario, a group of us planned a day trip to Montreal about a 2 hour drive from Ottawa. Shirli grew up there so knows it well and we are picking up Caroline who lives there. Yet another even hotter and more humid day than yesterday. We stopped en route for gas and a coffee fill up and arrived in Montreal at Caroline's about 12:30. Caroline lives in a deep narrow flat on Rue St. Denis, one of the many older streets, the houses characterized by long sweeping and twisting outdoor staircases. R. St. Denis, mostly residential at Caroline's end, is a buzzing community of pubs and clubs and shops downtown farther. We met Caroline's two enormous cats before setting off downtown. First stop was to be Schwartz's deli for smoked meat! Schwartz's has been in business 70 years and is a tourist attraction. Rue St. Laurent was closed off to traffic and was lined with outdoor market stalls.

The deli is a narrow deep place with tables lining a mirrored wall on the left and a counter displaying the deli products along the right. We were lucky to find a table and shared it with two other gentlemen. The hot smoked meat on rye with mustard was thick and filling and came with chips (fries) and we ordered black cherry soda, the traditional meal so it seems. The waiter was jolly and congenial, didn't mind us taking his photo and even took ours as well! I guess it's pretty common there !

We browsed the outdoor stalls along Rue St. Laurent on the way back to the car and then drove down to the river where the oldest part of Montreal is. Montreal is a very old city. I'm not really sure how old the buildings are in this area but they must be several hundred years old, some of them, at least on Rue St. Paul and that area. We kept ducking into the souvenir shops to get cool in the air conditioning for a bit of relief from the heat. We then arrived in Place Jacque Cartier, ...