On Thursday morning, we got Dort to drop us off at the De La Savane metro station, which would be our "home" station during the visit, so we could buy our 3-day metro passes (unlimited and more than paid for themselves) and hop a train to the Rosemont station across town.
Now...we had a few unrelated places we wanted to see that day, but we figured we'd have no problem with free rein of the bus/metro system and our trusty map. Places always look so close together on a map, don't they?
Needless to say, when we made a long walk over a highway bridge straight out of the metro station, it was an indication that we were going to trek. And did I mention that Montreal was experiencing an uncharacteristic heat wave?
Fortunately though, we were excited, motivated, and wearing comfortable shoes. :) So on to Rue St. Viateur we went!
Many blocks later...
A co-worker had told me that a "must-do" on our trip was a visit to the original St. Viateur Bagels location. It has been frequented by lots of famous faces during its 50+ year history, and many of them are pictured on the walls (alongside lots of regular folks too).
CHAUD
(a.k.a. "Hot Bagels Now")
(a.k.a. "Hot Bagels Now")
They have a giant, open oven right there behind the cash register, and they're constantly pulling out fresh sesame bagels (their signature) and tossing them over into the bin for purchase. Doesn't get much fresher than that!
Andrew went with the classic sesame (which he said was "not just warm but HOT"), and I had a (cool but still delicious) cinnamon raisin. It's not really a cafe or anything, so we just ate them there in the corner. It was worth the walk!
After we carbo-loaded on bagels, we set out on what we (again) thought would be a short-ish walk over to the actual Mount Royal, the
Instead, we decided to head directly to Mount Royal Cemetery, which was actually on our itinerary. It was still at the top of the hill, but there was a direct route. Unfortunately, our slight misreading of the map sent us on more of a hiking detour, but the scenery was so nice that it was (pretty) hard to complain!
We made a brief stop in the Jewish area of the cemetery -- in part because we thought it was connected to the main cemetery (it wasn't) and in part because it was so pretty!
We kept going a little way up the hill and got to the main gate, which was being restored.
Cimetière Mont-Royal
Our final planned stop was the Catholic cemetery where Andrew's Grandpa Joe is buried, but we had to make it all the way through Mount Royal Cemetery to get there. I will just say this: it is expansive.
But we made it! We walked alll the way down Chemin Remembrance, past this guy:
and finally found ourselves at Notre-Dame-Des-Neiges Cemetery.
(As a Southern girl, I have to say that I loved their monogram! I hope that's appropriate.)
Before we left Atlanta, Andrew used their online database to look up exactly where Grandpa Joe was, so we were able to go straight to him. Sort of a somber stop, but we were glad we went.
At this point, we had walked upwards of 4-5 miles in the scorching sun, and I should also add that we were without phones or watches (smart!) and had absolutely no idea what time it was. However, our stomachs told us loud and clear that it was more than half past lunchtime. So we made the smartest move of the day and went to the nearest bus stop that would take us to food and the land of the living: downtown!
Our afternoon plan was to head to Rue St. Catherine, which our guidebook told us was the "hub" for shopping and sightseeing. We wanted a truly authentic Canadian lunch, so obviously we had:
Ha. Actually, I believe we stopped at the first place on Rue St. Catherine that had food and seating in the shade. (No AC, but who's being choosy at this point.)
Hmm...are those sunburns?
After refueling, we headed back out onto the busy street to check out all the shops. A lot were the same as what we have here (H&M, Forever 21, American Eagle, etc.), but there were also plenty of Canadian originals.
Inside Ogilvy (So pretty! And so much Longchamp!)
Finally, we headed a few blocks over to a more wide-open space nearby.
Cathédrale Marie Reine-du-Monde
Sun Life Building
Fairmont Queen Elizabeth (Where John & Yoko staged their bed-in.)
We narrowly missed walking into Montreal Fashion Week shows on our way down to Place Ville Marie, which is an underground shopping center!
PVM is also connected to the Eaton Centre mall near McGill University, so we walked through there too. Before heading back to the metro, we stopped for one of Andrew's favorite treats -- a spirel! Super-dense soft serve swirled with caramel....yum!
A short ride on the orange line later, we were back to De La Savane and more than ready to rest. We've tried to make a rough estimate of the total distance we walked that day, but it's just safer to say it was long. Thanks to Dort for making us dinner so that we only had to walk from the den to the dining room to get it!
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