Day 36 - Ottawa sightseeing. The tornado warning from last night was cancelled after just 17 minutes, so that was a relief (Dan assured us that as exciting as it would be to see one, it's not necessarily something we'd want to experience too closely!). However, the thunder storm caused enough damage that some parts of Ottawa were still without power today.
We drove into town, with the first stop their parliamentary buildings. Ottawa is the capital of Canada, after Queen Victoria declared it so, being halfway between Toronto and Montreal. The parliamentary buildings date back to the 1860s, and are currently undergoing the most extensive restoration work in Canada, due to be complete around 2028.
We were super fortunate to catch the tail-end of the army band putting on a show before doing a march through town. We're unsure if this was a weekly thing, or if we were just really lucky to see it.
After watching the band we went to the war memorial across the road. It was originally built to commemorate the Great War, and was erected in May 1939; obviously, they weren't prepared for another world war at the time. Other wars have since been added on to the memorial (WW2, Korean, Boer, Afghanistan).
This part of Ottawa was adorned with statues; so many of them, almost at every corner, immortalising a huge range of people! And the old buildings, all very French in their architecture and with copper roofs, were a stark contrast to the cement and brick boxes of later years.
For lunch today, we tried a Canadian dish called poutine. The traditional dish is fries covered in gravy and cheese curds, but there are also many variations. Mine had mince, caramelised onions, bacon, and maple syrup added to it! It may not look at all appealing, but it was certainly very tasty.
We also tried Dr Pepper and Root Beer. Dan liked neither, the kids and I all thought Dr Pepper was okay, but the root beer...yeuch! An overpowering smell and taste of wintergreen (coming from the sassafras root bark) put us all off, and the mostly full can was given back to the shop to empty.
We didn't want to go to any museums or galleries, and after a quick stop at the Notre Dame Basilica (there was a wedding scheduled so we couldn't go in), found a local shopping mall for the boys to get their hair cut. This was Dan's first haircut by someone other than himself in over 20 years!
"He even trimmed my eyebrows!"
An old Greek man who worked there was an experienced salesman - he came over and told Abi she would look so much better is her hair was trimmed (he was repeating the same thing we'd been telling her for ages), and before we knew it, she was up on the seat too!
The barbers did an excellent job, and after trimming the boys' hair along the neck with the clippers, did the rest of the haircut with scissors - the way it should be done!
Day 37 - Ottawa to Montreal. Saw this on a tshirt...
There are two types of people in this world:
Those who can extrapolate from incomplete data.
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!
We have all enjoyed our pseudo French lessons over the last four weeks, reading all the signs in both English and French, and learning easy translations of common words like open (ouvert), closed (ferme), stop (arret), arrive (arrivee), welcome (bienvenue). (I apologise for the lack of inflections, but my keyboard doesn't have them). We (read: I) have also learned there are words we use in English that are actually French translations! Such as, edifice (building), promenade (drive), and evident (obvious).
Driving towards Montreal, both Dan and I were wishing we'd paid a little more attention to a lot more signs, as the English component was suddenly done away with entirely and all the people around us were also talking French. (Around 70% of people living in Montreal speak only French, and French is actually the only official language of the province of Quebec; in fact, English is not promoted).
There was a bit of a 'discussion' when I was quickly trying to translate a parking sign at a primo spot, that Dan drove out of before I'd finished. Turned out the 'no parking' was just for delivery trucks from Monday to Friday...oh well, we didn't know how to pay for the parking anyway!
After we checked into our downtown hotel, we went on a walking tour of Old Montreal. We were unfortunately too late to go inside the Notre Dame Basilica (another one!), but looking at the architecture of all the old buildings on our route was pretty awesome.
We also found a random tree-like sculpture with stairs up the 'branches'. Alex and Abi had lots of fun running from one to another, and the glass-covered building in the background looked like it disappeared in the clouds.
We had a bit of excitement at one point on our walk. Two police cars with their sirens on went screaming round a corner where we were waiting to cross the road, and parked right in front of a subway entrance. Two police officers ran straight in, two others grabbed their machine guns from the back before running in, and then we saw two more police cars pulling up and their officers running in! Couldn't find any mention of what happened on the news though, but it sure looked intriguing.
On the way back to the hotel, we stocked up on food at a nearby supermarket. Our hotel room for our four nights in Montreal had a two-element cooktop, and also pans and utensils, so we could cook our own meals again. Hotdogs were a quick and easy meal, but the stress levels spiked when the smoke from a burning bit of fat was getting closer to the smoke alarm round the corner of the room. It turned out the rangehood went nowhere - it literally just sucked it up and spat it back out the front!
"You'd better open the window," I said, "as the last thing we need is to cause a hotel evacuation!"
Day 38 - sightseeing Montreal. Our room in the hotel came with breakfast buffet, and Alex was overjoyed to find pain au chocolat included! To be fair, both Dan and I also had two, as they were really yummy and slightly warm, so the chocolate was soft while the pastry was crunchy. Abi was overjoyed to find flavours of yoghurt she'd never seen before, being caramel, chantilly strawberry, and lemon tart. Croissants with ham and cheese, yoghurt and peaches, bagels and cream cheese, and pain au chocolat...we were rather full by the time we'd eaten two or three of everything!
Our first stop today was the nearest metro station to buy a three-day public transport pass (so efficient!). We got a subway then a bus to Mont-Royal, where we walked to a nearby sightseeing spot over the city. Can you spot the painting of Leonard Cohen?
When we left Mont-Royal, we headed back into town on a different route, which caused a bit of consternation when the bus didn't stop where the route planner said (and we couldn't understand the destination screen or the voiceover prompts or the bus driver). Montreal has a fabulous summer city plan, whereby loads of streets become pedestrian only for about two months; this, of course, has impacted driving routes. We got as close as we could to the Notre Dame Basilica, and once there bought tickets to see inside. It was simply beautiful, and so serene.
The ceiling was a stunning blue covered in stars, and the front of the altar had gorgeous depictions of key moments in the Old Testament. The organ had 7000 pipes, ranging from 9.75m long to just 6.35mm! Some of the carvings date back to 1761, and some of the oil paintings had no date. There were loads of people visiting, and even if one wasn't religious at all, it was still a wonderfully peaceful place to be. I could have stayed a lot longer than we did.
The basilica also turned out to be a handy shelter from a passing shower, and once we left we walked to the Old Port. This part of town has had a revamp and is now a tourist hotspot, with Canada's biggest Ferris wheel a new drawcard. Dan and I enjoyed a half hour of peace while the kids went around the waterway on a pedalboat.
Once they were done, we walked further along the portside to get to Montreal's latest attraction, a $495,000CAD "bonjour Montreal" sign. It proved quite challenging to find, as it couldn't be seen from ground level; it was up a large flight of stairs and on the roof of a port building! Bit of a silly place to put it, we thought, especially as there was no signage to tell you it was there.
After that, it was too early to go back to our hotel room, but also too late to go to anything substantial, so we hopped on a bus and the subway to go to Montreal's famous Marche Jean-Talon. The amount of fresh produce on offer was incredible, but there wasn't much of anything else (not like the Granville Island market in Vancouver). If we had been on the hunt for fruits and vegetables, this was definitely the place to buy them.
Dan's leg held up remarkably well over the 10,206 steps of yesterday and the 14,871 of today. By the time we got back to the hotel, he said it was "annoying" more than painful, so we're taking that as positive in his recovery.
Day 39 - more Montreal sightseeing. It was busier at breakfast today, and after waiting for a table we had to wait for plates then wait for cutlery then wait for glasses then wait for cheese then wait for ham then wait for croissants...the poor kitchen staff!
Today we went back to the Old Port, and had a quick look in another church with some very clever 3D frescoes on the ceiling.
We then took the kids to spend some of their birthday and Christmas monies on the high ropes course they saw yesterday. They had so much fun!
They had to start on the beginner level, which was designed for really little kids, so was completed in just a couple of minutes. They then moved on to the intermediate level, and were doing really well until Abi slipped and missed the log she was aiming for. She then panicked (which anyone would do when they're suddenly hanging from their safety rope), but after a few tears and shakes, she carried on to the finish. So brave!
They did another intermediate level together before splitting up, Alex onto the harder levels and Abi just doing intermediate ones.
Alex decided to do the highest course there was, and there were a few stages he got rather scared at when he couldn't reach the other obstacles easily. One particular stage was five monkey bars - nothing out of the ordinary when they're at the normal distance from the ground, but exponentially more terrifying when they're three storeys up!
After the ropes course, we got back on the subway and a bus to Saint Joseph's Oratory. This is the oldest church in Canada, has one of the largest domes in the world, and is the highest point in Montreal, sitting 30m higher than Mont-Royal.
Inside was an incredible contrast to the Basilica we'd seen yesterday. It was concrete and stone and wrought iron, and so very tall! Even though it wasn't as elaborate, this church was still beautiful in its own way. One part that amazed us was a massive fresco around the altar, which turned out not to be a fresco at all, but a mosaic! Goodness knows how long it must have taken the artist(s) to do, as all the tiles were about the size of my fingernails.
Outside was an uninterrupted view back to Montreal, and when I walked down the stairs to the viewing platform, there was a lovely bronze sculpture depicting humanity in all its forms and how we should entertain every stranger as one may be an angel.
I'd left Dan at the top of the stairs to save his leg, and definitely felt the burn in my thighs by the time I'd made it back up to him! Of course, that was when we found the escalator...
We headed back to the hotel after that and had an early dinner. Dan had said "yes" to daily housekeeping, and I must say, it's quite lovely to come back to fresh towels, a cleaned bathroom, and beds made up. It's not something we would normally do, but since this was our first hotel stay after all the motels and AirBnBs, we decided to throw water and energy conservation out the window and enjoy a little luxury!
There is a definite disadvantage to travelling with children - the inability to go out at night. Every night after dinner, we'd been hearing music from a nearby street (one of the ones closed to traffic and open to pedestrians). Two nights ago, it turns out we missed a fireworks competition, a drone show (which Dan reckons would have been cancelled as it was windy), a 30m steel art installation of a giant with acrobats performing tricks, and light projections on historic buildings. Granted, we wouldn't have been able to see them all, but one would have been nice. We haven't even been able to watch the TV as the kids would just watch, so from 8pm the TV goes off and Dan and I sit in silence and partial darkness until it's time for us to go to sleep. Kids ruin everything.
Day 40 - more of Montreal.
I think hotels follow a strict formula when ensuring their patrons have rubbish sleeps, although I'm unsure as to what their end-game would be. Number one, beds that are small (who still sleeps in a double?). Number two, beds that are too soft. Number three, an air conditioning unit that hasn't been serviced since it's installation forty years ago.
Neither Dan nor I have had good sleeps in this hotel. We slept the first night with the air conditioning off due to the noise it makes, and therefore we were hot all night. The second night we had it switched on, but then kept getting woken up every time it went through its cycle. Last night we switched it off again but had the window open, and this time were serenaded by the sounds of the street echoing up (street cleaners, emergency services, cars and scooters etc.).
Chuck in a bed that's too small and a mattress that's too soft for good measure...
After another delicious breakfast (of which there was plentiful supply), we went out to the Olympic Park. In 1976, Montreal hosted the summer olympics (New Zealand won gold in hockey and John Walker won the 1500m), and the velodrome was later changed to a bio dome attraction.
Inside there were four distinct environments, with flora and fauna to see. The sub-arctic area was pretty awesome, as there were a variety of penguins (one being the king penguin, and they had a chick!), and the walls were made of ice. The coolness of this area was a nice reprieve from the Amazon area we'd been in previously.
We went back to the hotel to grab the kids' togs and towels, and then went on a different subway line and bus to Parc John-Dore, a man-made family beach and swimming bay (right next to a formula one track that we got to drive on part of). We lined up to get our bags and tickets checked, as they had a strict policy of what you couldn't take in.
"Do we have to pay to go to the beach?", Abi asked in disbelief.
In all honesty, I was happy to pay for it - lots of clean picnic benches, lots of rubbish bins, lots of lifeguards, hot showers, cleaned beach, safe water, drinking fountains, no animals, no smoking, no glass bottles, no alcohol, no boomboxes. All for a nominal fee of $19CAD for the family.
Dan and I enjoyed almost two sunny, peaceful hours of no kids, while they built a small pool at the edge of the water, and waded from one side of the water to the other and back. A lifeguard did blow her whistle at them when Alex had Abi on his shoulders, and would sometimes go underwater. This was apparently frowned upon, not that our kids heard either the whistle or her telling them off in French!
We had a quick and easy dinner of rotisserie chicken wraps back at our hotel room, and told the kids to grab some warm clothes. I had decided this morning that, stuff it, we're going out tonight, tired kids be damned.
There was a free concert at the foot of Mont-Royal, performed by the Montreal Orchestra, that I reckoned would be amazing.
"Yes!" sang my soul.
"Will there be food trucks?" asked the kids.
"What?! No, there wo-...Are you kidd-...oh my god!"
I'd read on the orchestra's website that this openair free concert was the event of the year that everyone looked forward to, and would get about 50,000 attendees. I was initially dubious of that figure (a free orchestra performance on a Wednesday night?), but when we arrived and saw the extensive police presence and road blocks and camera crews everywhere, never mind the sheer volume of people on every square inch of the parkland and the road next to it, 50,000 seemed an accurate number!
We managed to (literally) squeeze ourselves into a fairly good spot a little way up the hill, with a good view of a screen and right in front of a speaker bank. What a performance - pieces of music from composers I'd never heard before covered a variety of different styles. The world-renowned conductor, Yannick Nezet-Seguin, also had an interesting style of his own; he came out in a sparkly black blazer and black shorts, then changed after the introduction piece into a cricket vest and boardshorts!
We left before the last piece was played to avoid the rush of people, and went back to a pedestrianised street near our hotel. This area had a two-month schedule of free events on, and was the source of the music we'd been hearing every night. Tonight was a bachata dance party! This style is kind of similar to ceroc (which I used to do before I got married), and it was so awesome to watch all the dancers move and sway together beautifully.
Abi and Alex took turns dancing with me while Dan sat on a nearby seat, and after half an hour or so we went back to the hotel. It was almost 11 by the time we all got into bed, and Dan and I optimistically thought the kids would go straight to sleep since it was waaaaay past their bedtime.
Rustle, thump, sniffle.
"Right! That's it! You two are deplorable!" yelled Dan as he jumped out of bed and yanked their covers down. "Get out of bed, Alex. WHY DID YOU HIT YOUR SISTER? Your bed is now the floor. And you'll be taking turns from now on!"
We are utterly sick and tired of their continued behaviour in bed. So from now on, one will be in their sleeping bag on the floor (as gross and uncomfortable as it may be, serve the little shits right), and one will be in their bed. The cost of two bedrooms every night, or even three beds, is not something we can afford.
Day 41 - Montreal to Quebec City. Bye-bye delicious buffet breakfast; I will definitely miss having pain au chocolat for breakfast every day!
It started raining about halfway towards Quebec City, and when I checked the weather, it said it was going to rain again tomorrow. Oh well, we can't have sunny weather sightseeing every day.
We drove around some of the old streets when we arrived, as we were too early to check in to our hotel, and admired all the buildings we will see better (longer than three passing seconds) tomorrow.
Before we left New Zealand, I'd brought a library book home on Canada. Abigail had bookmarked Montmorency Falls at Quebec City. Not only had she bookmarked it, but she'd written it on a wee note for the pin board, told all her friends, told us, told anyone else who'd listen, and reminded us frequently about it when we arrived in Canada.
"Hey Abi," I said, "the Montmorency Falls are here!"
"The what?"
"The Montmorency Falls! The ones you'd said you wanted to see?"
"I never said anything about the falls."
The rain was the incessant drizzly variety, the type that would soak you in moments, so we grabbed our raincoats and waterproof pants from our bags, and walked along to the bottom. These falls are 83m high, a full 30m taller than Niagara Falls, and feed two hydro power plants.
We drove to the upper carpark to walk along the suspension bridge over the falls, and watched a couple of people zip line across. After that it was late enough to go to our hotel, via Walmart for our frozen microwave dinners...
...which we couldn't eat, as our room didn't have a microwave!
"Oh yeah! I remember now," Dan laughed. "Domino's it is!"
At 10pm, we were treated to a 20 minute firework display across the river. I did a bit of research and discovered that, for all of August, Quebec City was putting on FREE fireworks displays, twice a week!
Day 42 - Quebec City sightseeing. First stop was a laundromat, as not only did we have no more clean clothes, but it gave us something to do in the rain. The weather wasn't looking at all favourable for sightseeing, and Dan and I were 'eagerly' contemplating a day stuck in a room with the kids.
Thank the heavens, by the time the tumble dryer was done, the weather had cleared up a bit, so we found the first available carpark closest to Old Quebec and started our walking tour.
Chateau Frontenac is reputedly the world's most photographed hotel, and it was easy to see why! It was simply massive, and very photogenic from any angle. It was originally built as one of Canada's grand railway hotels and opened in 1893.
We walked along the Terrasse Dufferin towards the Citadel; Dan didn't want to walk up the stairs, so he and Alex walked up a ramp. Abi and I walked up the 310 steps along the Governor's Promenade, which went round...and round...and not up!
"I'm not sure where we are," I confessed to a grumbling Abi, "but I guess there's no stairs into the citadel walls as that would entirely defeat their purpose."
And I was right! By the time we reached the end of the promenade, we had walked right to the other side of the citadel. As it happened, Dan and Alex couldn't get to it either - it's as if they'd designed it with a massive moat-like gap to keep people out...hmm...
We found the entrance, a small driveway in, and were just in time to see the changing of the guards. We unfortunately couldn't go on a tour as our parking was about to run out, so made our way back to the car to grab our sandwiches and put more money in the meter.
We found a bench to eat our lunch back amongst the old cobblestone streets, and watched a brass band in period costume perform under the ramparts of the city.
A bit further along we saw a group of ladies and one man (also in period costume) singing near some statues of giants.
After running out our parking meter for a second time, we drove down to the old port area and walked around some more cobblestone streets that really did look like an old village square of rural France!
Back at the hotel room, eating our dinner, Dan started laughing.
"What's so funny?"
"When I said we should go on our world trip, this wasn't quite what I had in mind!"
"What?"
"Sitting on a hotel bed, eating day old, cold pizza, with five pairs of my undies drying on the chest of drawers, while the air conditioner is so loud we can't hear the French tv!"
The air-conditioner really was loud - the other loud ones paled in comparison. This thing sounded like a woodchipper. And it seemed the other rooms fared no better; when we switched ours off we could still hear our neighbours', without getting any benefit from it! Oh well, who doesn't like sleeping in 28° with no fan or opening window?
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