This weekend myself, three of my collegues went out to have a look around in montreal. The weather was extremely pleasing for travellers than it used to be. We also noticed a slight drizzle in the morning. After having our regular meal of bread and doughnut with honey, milk, and muffins and a cup of cornflakes ( which we are having for past 7 days without any change in the menu ) we set out towards Old city of Montreal.
We walked our way to the bus terminal in Dorval (near our Travelodge where we stay) from where we took a bus 211 towards a place called lyonel Groulx. The journey was quiet good and mostly it was good becoz the bus was driven by a young beautiful lady with a dark glass driving at a speed of 160 km/hour. She was very good.
After getting down there we got into metro and after changing couple of trains we reached our metro station PIE IX. We saw first time the Big O, the olympic stadium. I was really impressed the architecture of it. I could not believe it was constructed in 1976.
The slanting tower nearby it is too too good. We took the cable car to the top of it. The city looked simply beautiful. Later after reaching our hotel back i read about the history of the slanting tower i was shocked to hear that it has fell twice :) and it was rebuilt.
Neary by that there was a biodome which used to be the olympic stadium i suppose. It had many species of monkeys, birds, trees, fishes. The one thing which i was very happy to see was penguin. As a Linux user i am every where connected to use penguin in my wallpaper, icons .... but for the first time i saw penguin. I loved it so so much ... But bad thing was it was on water. After seeing these penguin in water i would love to see it on ice. what a sight it would be ...
From there we went to Basilica of Notre Dame, one of the very beautiful church in the city. It had a very nice interiors. A place worth visiting.
After leaving the church we went roaming, there we find a guy doing some tricks in the center of the road. He said he is doing it for past 15 years. The tricks were pretty common ones but how he markets himself and how makes jokes out of everyone and maintains crowds, is simple amazing. May be this what is the difference between Indians doing street tricks and canadiens doing it.
From there we went to a place called Peel and McGill for shopping. The place was very very costly. I am not an exception for the ongoing recession. So we just did window shopping :)
Next we went to Mont Royal and just roamed around for 1 hour and then finally returned back to hotel. Overall it was very nice to see the old montreal.
April 19 2009
After having the same food for the 8 th or 9 th time and expecting 21 more days of similar food, we set again towards old montreal to do some shopping. Montreal has a very good underground city. So went there hoping as the place is sub ground level the price will also be a level less. On seeing the price our hopes got shattered. Be it above the ground or below the ground the price is just the same. So another 3 hrs of window shopping :) hoping to find something cheap.
Next we went to the St.Joseph Oratory and saw it. It was spectacular in size. Though its interiors was not that great but it was amazingly large is size built on the rocks.
After that we scrambled through the map to find china town and finally with some help from a chinese guy we went there but as it was sunday afternoon almost all shops were closed. So on the way we finally bought some curd and Sprite that is what we could buy :). Then we rode back to hotel
Overall the two days was very good and we had very good feel of old Montreal. The only thing i missed in old montreal was snow. I really would like to see the entire city again place by place during winter time. I think it would be really really good. Hope my company calls me to Montreal during December :)
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