Montreal was first settled by the French in the 1600's and is an island surrounded by rivers. The rivers have a clever lock system that allows the passage of container ships on the St Laurent river.It was originally believed by the french and native indians that the river would connect Montreal to China.
Montreal means "royal mountain" and is the 3rd largest speaking French city in the world. However, unlike Quebec it is bilingual and most of the 3 million population speak both French and English . Strangely though most signage is French. It is a modern city and quite liberal in its morals and thinking. It wasn't until the late 1970's that they realized that they had demolished most of their heritage buildings and finally passed a law to stop further demolition. Unfortunately they lost alot of significant buildings in the name of progress. This was the same time of the Olympics in 1976, the stadiums, velodrome, athletic village and other structures are still being utilized today as museums , sporting venues and accomodation .
It is a city of parks and 400 kms of bike tracks as well as hosting the Grand Prix next weekend.
Like Quebec, Montreal is under going massive construction and road works while the weather permits. During the winter months they are unable to do any works at all. 200 million dollars is spent every winter to maintain the roads and paths free from snow.
On arrival we had 2 hrs of free time to explore old Montreal, before a city tour at 130. We enjoyed walking around the cobbled streets and indulged in Poutine ( curdled cheese, chips and gravy) and a smoked beef and mustard sandwich . The beef is layered about 3 inches high!!!!
Montreal is linked by an underground system of 63 railway stations and 200 buildings. This allows the population to basically live underground during the extremes of temperatures ( -10c) that they experience. People can virtually leave their apartments, travel into the CBD by train/car to work or shop and do not need to venture outside.
We checked out the labyrinth of under ground shops and subways and were just amazed at the levels of shopping underneath the main streets. There was usually 4-5 levels of shopping surrounded by the met transport system. From the street level you would never know what was beneath the busy streets.
The city is very safe, is mainly middle class, and has several universities specializing in multi media/ special effects , medicine and pharmaceuticals.
Our evening meal,was at a local pub.
The Montreal flag is divided into quarters by a cross. Each quarter depicts the countries of influence in the city, Rose- England. Thistle-Scotland. Shamrock - Ireland. Lily of the valley-France .
Cheers Leanne and Greg Xx
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Location:Montreal
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