Day 46 - Old and Underground Montreal

No rain was forecast for today so we wandered back through Old Montreal. A shop selling gourmet foods and tourist trinkets also served pastries and coffee. My decaf latte was the best I have had in 6 weeks!

We walked to the St Lawrence River through the western side of Old Montreal. The Lachine Canal was opened in 1825 allowing ships to avoid the Lachine Rapids about 10kms upstream. The canal is now only used by small craft which can navigate the 14km waterway and 5 remaining locks.

The city is deciding what to do about the historic silos and malting factory which were used for storing barley and processing it into malt. They were built in 1905 when all ships headed for the Great Lakes passed through the Lachine Canal. These days cargo is off loaded from ships further downstream and moved out on goods trains. This one was so long it took 15 minutes to pass.

I went to the touring World Press Photo Exhibition 2019 at Marché Bonsecours, a former market building now housing restaurants and boutiques. The collection was pretty depressing, focussed mostly on tragic situations around the world. The poster advertising the exhibition suggested a more light hearted collection - that's Trump pulling Macron by the hand like a little boy.

There are so many wonderful historic buildings in this city. Here are a few we admired during our often aimless wanderings.

Montreal also has an extensive underground city connecting many downtown buildings and Metro stations. There are 30kms of passageways and 1600 shops and restaurants under hotels, office buildings and roads. The Underground was called the Réseau (network) but has been renamed the Reso, adopting a commonly used phonetic spelling. We found it challenging to navigate the Reso and Google maps was no help.

 

The glass roof and walls conect several buildings. This wonderful statute is positioned facing a large infinity pool inside the complex of old and new buildings.

Day 45 - Market and Neighborhoods

It was cloudy and much cooler today at 15°C but there was no rain. Our first stop was the Jean-Talon Market. My favourite store was the patisserie. The cafe tried hard to make good coffee but I am so looking forward to coffee made by an Australian barista.

Our return Metro tickets cost $6.50 each but the trains run very frequently, there are lots of stations, and the everthing is very clean. The trains run on rails but instead of having steel wheels running on steel tracks, they run on quieter rubber tyres.

We wandered through Little Italy but several shops are vacant and there is a lot of roadwork and construction. In a row of identical trees only one had turned yellow.

Our next Metro trip was to the Gay Village neighbourhood but it was not very interesting or classy. Simply putting up rainbow flags doesn't change a neighbourhood - there were no designer boutiques, decent restaurants or other interesting shops. A feminist bookshop is surviving despite having major roadworks right outside the front door. Some buildings in the side streets were interesting. The squirrel hoped we had food for it to store away for winter.

We walked back to downtown and had poor quality ribs for lunch at a sports bar. There was no better alternative nearby when we felt hungry and needed to be off our feet. Anita went to the hotel heated pool and steam room, but at 30°C the pool is too cold for me. I will wait to enjoy the hot hydro pool on our cruise ship.

Day 44 - Old Montreal

We were upgraded to an executive room so had the complimentary breakfast in the lounge - much better than the "free" breakfast provided at Hampton Suites in the USA.

Our planning for the day was simple - visit Old Montreal. We headed for the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal which was dedicated in 1829. As Canada was not bombed during World War 2, its historic buildings did not suffer the damage inflicted across Europe.

 

The Old City is near the St Lawrence River where pleasure craft are moored and our cruise ship will berth. There are a few attractions by the river such a zipline, but winter weather limits their use for several months each year. In many ways Montreal is more French than France - this vintage Citroën is parked outside the Riva restaurant.

Today is the first day of fall but the leaves on some trees have already changed colour.

A lot of the shops and restaurants in Old Montreal target American tourists by selling souvenirs and burgers. Here are a couple of photos of the area where the interesting boutiques compete with shops selling crass T-shirts for tourists. Hopefully Anita was contemplating a boutique.

We headed away from the tourist area and enjoyed a pleasant lunch at Brasserie 701, where there were no burgers on the menu and the bread was

Day 43 - Train from Albany to Montreal

While we waited for our train two young women took too long to return to their Toronto bound train and were left behind. They knew someone still on the train so their belongings were going to be OK, and they had their phones and money to make other plans.

Quite a few people left our train at Albany, but only one other person boarded with us so there were plenty of empty seats. It started as a sunny day but as our train slowly made its way north a cloud cover developed but there was no rain.

Amtrak trains are third class compared to the European and Japanese long distance train systems. I bought Anita a coffee from the Cafe Car and was given hot water for my cup of tea, but the tracks are so rough managing two hot drinks was a challenge.

The railway lies to the west of the Champlain Canal and further north west of the Champlain Lake. The State of Vermont is across the Lake. The northern part of our trip was through farmland.

Not surprisingly our train was half an hour late into Montreal, but we were pleasantly surprised when given an upgrade to the executive level of our Double Tree hotel.

Day 42 - Suburban Albany

We had to venture into the suburbs of Albany to buy supplies for our train trip to Montreal. There is no supermarket downtown and we can't rely on Amtrak food for a whole day. Fortunately Google maps accurately shows the times of Albany buses so our first experience travelling on a local bus was fine.

Our destination was the Whole Foods Market at the Colonie Center about 8kms from our hotel. Across the road there is another group of stores at Northway Shopping Center. Most people here drive to the shops, and drive from one shop to the next, so shopping mall carparks are huge and not pedestrian friendly. First stop was the pet shop then we went to Target. We like to see the different goods on sale and compare prices. A lot of things are much more expensive here.

Lunch was at the Cheesecake Factory where we had salmon and salad and chicken and salad - no cheesecake. The place is seriously over decorated but the food was OK.

The Colonie Center was built in 1966. Its main anchor store was Sears department store but that was closed in 2017 and remains empty. The LL Bean outdoor shop is the busiest in the country and we helped maintain its reputation. We did some people watching and bought a few small things not readily available back home.

It was dark when we caught the 905 bus back to downtown Albany, or thought we did. In fact we had confused ourselves about which side of the road to catch the return bus and realised we were on the 905 headed for downtown Schenectady, 20 miles from our hotel! We consulted other passengers who told us where to get off and cross the road to wait at a well lit bus shelter. We checked with Google maps and learned we would be standing at the bus stop for 15 minutes.

My thoughts went to the very high crime rate in Albany. It is the 7th most unsafe city in the USA. We were within sight of a Wendy's restaurant but the surrounding streets were not well lit. The security lights in the car yard next to the bus stop came on and that helped. Another woman came to wait at the bus stop and fortunately the bus turned up on time.

As we were walking from the bus stop to our hotel we passed the woman who had served us at LL Bean, who not surprisingly recognised us and said hello. We had a similar experience in Nashville when we caught a bus to Hillsboro Village. A woman who had served us at a restaurant the previous day stopped to say hello. About a dozen people have asked us if we are sisters

After dropping our shopping back at our hotel we walked one block to The Hollow Bar and Restaurant. Next door is Lodge's, the oldest continuously operated store downtown, selling cheap clothing, school uniforms and medical scrubs.

Day 41 - Albany Downtown

From our hotel we walked along Clinton Avenue a couple of blocks across from Washington Avenue. This is an area of urban decay were some renovation work is underway, but most buildings are abandoned. We couldn't see a way across to Washington because of Sheridan Hollow, a ravine running parallel between the two roads.

There are 700 historic buildings along Clinton Avenue, most requiring significant restoration. Very few people were around and little traffic. A friendly Black workman in a City Works vehicle told us we were in a "rough" area and pointed out the best rout to get downtown.

Once we were walking along Sheridan Avenue we passed occupied homes and other buildings. There are hardly any stores in the downtown area, only restaurants and cafes, and lots of unoccupied buildings. We turned into State Street and walked up the steep hill to the New York State Capitol building.

There is an amazing difference between the area around the Capitol building and downtown. This is where hundreds of government employees are based in tall office buildings, surrounded by some magnificent new and historic buildings.

We had lunch at Jack's Diner on Washington then wandered around these wonderful old buildings.

Albany City Hall