It was when I was waiting for the tour of the basilica to start that I noticed a sign out front by the gift shop advertising a walking tour of the historical district of Montreal. It wasn’t something you pre-paid for, but just showed up at the appropriate language time (ie French, English or Spanish). As I didn’t know what my Convention schedule was for the remainder of the day, I decided to go back to the Convention for a while and see what developed. As luck would have it, scheduling worked out and I scampered back up the hill for a tour.
I’m sooo glad I did! I had no idea what an incredibly rich historical area this was. The tour was an hour and a half-ish, but we went back in time to the late 1600’s early 1700’s. We started with the founding of the church on the current site of the Notre Dame Basilica (there were three other churches on the site before the current structure was completed in the 1800’s).
The tour guide then showed us the progression of Montreal’s standing as a center of finance through the architecture of the financial district. We walked down through the warehouse district which back in the 1700s and 1800s was more adjacent to the waterfront than it is today.
(Montreal's narrowest street)We saw the influence of the French, British and subsequent buildings in the warehouse district.
Alas, my cameras batteries died when we got to the courthouses…
Later I went back and found the segment of the original wall that used to surround the City of Ville-Marie (now Montreal).
Walking tours are a great way to see a snapshot of a place if you've only got a little bit of time.
No comments:
Post a Comment