Feeling young in an old city!

We walked over 5 miles exploring Old Montreal, and taking in the history and “old” feel of the area. We visited the main branch of the oldest banking institution in North America—the Bank of Montreal established in 1817.  The bank issued the country’s first currency and continued to do so until the central bank took over. The bank lobby looks like a grand hotel!


There was also a small museum with banking memorabilia, a ledger book and old passbooks from savings accounts.   (Isn’t it surprising what retired accountants can get excited about?)

We visited the Notre Dame de bon Secours, Montreal’s first stone chapel which was built in 1771. It became known as “The Sailor’s Church”, because sailors prayed at the chapel before and after their journeys, and they began a tradition of bringing votive ship replicas to hang in the chapel.  There is a huge statue of Mary on the dome greeting sailors entering the seaway.
We got to go down to the crypt of the chapel, where the founder Marquerite Bourgeoys is buried.  She was canonized a saint in 1982.
From the tower of the church we were able to capture some great scenes:
These condos were built as the athlete village for the 1976 Olympic games.  The architect hoped the style and idea would catch on with other Olympic sites, but they did not.  Millionaires live in these condos today, which are right on the St. Lawrence seaway.




The biosphere is an architectural landmark of Expo 67

We also found out that Montreal is an island!  It is surrounded by rivers, and connected to land by a number of bridges that span across.  There are also two other islands adjacent to Montreal, St. Helen's Island and Notre Dame Island right next to it, in the .middle of the St Lawrence river,  The Grand Prix track is located on Notre Dame Island and the F1 race was here last weekend.  We missed it by just a day!

A view of St. Lawrence River

We also visited Champ de Mars, a park where there are remnants from the old walls that surrounded the city up until the early 19th century. 

We loved seeing the old buildings and houses, and beautiful flowers surrounding the exterior of the establishments.  With so many buildings 150+ years old, it makes us feel young!
We have been so impressed with the city.  The streets are clean, and the people are very nice.  On the subway, a young girl offered me her seat...(gosh, maybe I'm not feeling so young after all!)  Twice when we've been trying to find our way, someone has stopped to help, even if there was limited ability to speak English.   It's been a great visit to Montreal!