Montréal – Day 0 and Day 1
Sunday, 16-Jul-2023
Tags: Travel
In July 2023 Larry had his quarterly MEF meeting, which this year was in Montreal. Eileen drove as Larry was a little over 3 weeks out from quadricep tendon repair on his right leg and was sporting a pretty hefty brace.
We arrived in Montreal on Sunday afternoon and checked into the Omni Mont-Royal on Sherbrooke Street, a very central downtown location, on the corner of Peel. We met up with Mike B and ate at Ibérica, a tapas place near the hotel.
Monday, July 17
Eileen walked up Peel alongside a number of McGill University buildings and then up the multiple staircases of Mont Royal Park. Mont Royal Park is a majestic mountain in the middle of the city. The 692 acre park was originally designed by Frederick Law Olmsted (who also co-designed NY Central Park), though not completed to his design due to a number of factors. The staircases lead to the Kondiaronk Belvedere, a semi-circular plaza with the Mont Royal Chalet, overlooking downtown Montreal. Unfortunately the view was hazy due to the Canadian fires.
After a coffee break, Eileen walked along the Boucle du Sommet trail (plus some minor trails) to the Mont Royal Cross and down the Camillien-Houde Belvedere for a look east to the Olympic Stadium. The Mount Royal Cross goes back to 1643, though the current one is a 26-ton steel structure 98 feet high and lit by LED lights.
After a break at the hotel, Eileen walked along Sherbrooke to some of the historic buildings that are sandwiched between modern buildings. Most of them were built around 1880–1920. In addition, there were interesting sculptures in random spots. The two buildings shown are Maison Reid Wilson and Maison Louis-Joseph Forget.
The last stop before dinner was to see the Illuminated Crowd, sitting in front of a modern building on McGill College Avenue. The Raymond Mason sculpture, built in 1985 out of polyester resin, displays 65 people of all ages, race, facial expressions, and conditions. From the artists: “A crowd has gathered, facing a light, an illumination brought about by a fire, an event, an ideology—or an ideal. The strong light casts shadows, and as the light moves toward the back and diminishes, the mood degenerates – rowdiness, disorder and violence occur, showing the fragile nature of man.”
For dinner, we wandered around the section of Montréal southwest of our hotel, which featured multiple Turkish restaurants, as one of our group was Turkish and suggested our dinner cuisine. We finally picked one and had food like falalel and shawarma.
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Larry and Eileen Samberg
