Rainy Montreal

Hi from rainy Montreal.  It is pouring outside right now.  Poor Ralph is out there hooking up the trailer because it isn't supposed to slow down for the next few hours.  Fortunately we have a very short drive to Mont-Tremblant National Park, only 70 miles, where it will be, of course, raining.

Yesterday will be one of those days that you will be able to laugh about a few months later.  It started off smoothly enough, no rain predicted until 3:00 and we had a walking city tour scheduled from 11:00 to 3:00.  We left the RV park with 1 1/2 hours to spare, figuring we would walk around while waiting for the tour to start.  We purchased our tickets through Trip Advisor and pressed the link giving us directions to the meeting point.  It guided us to a very, very sketchy part of the city so we looked at a different map which showed us to be 15 minutes drive away from the actual meeting place.  No worries as we had plenty of time to spare.  A few wrong turns later, we got to where we needed to be, found an underground parking garage, drove in under a guillotine gate, which closed behind us. We then saw a sign that said that the maximum height to go further into the garage to park was 5' 10".  Our truck is over six feet tall.  We were able to exit but the curved driveway was so narrow I had to lean out of the truck window to make sure we weren't scraping the bumper-it was so close.  We almost weren't able to get out, worried we wouldn't have cell service in the garage in order to get help.

Once we were out of the garage, the tour was going to start in a few minutes and we still had no idea where to park.  So Ralph dropped me off at the meeting place and went in search of parking, figuring I could start the tour and keep him updated as to where the tour was.  I sent him bread crumb texts with directions as we moved along and he was able to find us about 20 minutes into the tour.  Whew!

The tour was good - Montreal has a very interesting history.  We learned about the conflicts with the French and Anglicans, why Montreal is no longer the financial center of Canada (the "quiet revolution" by the French caused the British banks and businesses to relocate to Toronto).  Though the official language is French, it has a heavy Irish influence due to immigration in the mid-1800's (our tour guide said she eats meat pies).  It boasts making 73% of the maple syrup in the world, however the Internet says that number is for the entire province of Quebec.  

The rain held off until about 2/3 of the way into the tour.  

Notre-Dame Basilica. It is a beautiful cathedral that is one of the biggest we have been in.  

This very popular café used to be a major bank in Montreal.

We spent much of the last hour of our tour in the underground city of Montreal (due to rain).  They claim it is the largest underground city in the world with 33 km of interconnected passageways of below-ground shops, parking garages, etc.  They put one of the highways under the city - we drove through one of the tunnels coming into the city.

St. Lawrence River has a very interesting history.  At one time, the river shipped ice all over the world, including Europe and as far away as Australia.  The river would freeze on the surface each winter, and the current underneath would break it apart and push it over the bank causing the city to flood when it melted.

Ha!  We do know some French after all!