Today I woke up two hours before my alarm went off which wasn’t good considering I didn’t sleep much before. But there I was, up before anyone should be. When one wakes up with extra time the only logical thing to do is order room service! We ordered a bunch of random things, Fried chicken, a fruit plate, a Cesar salad and jalapeño cheddar chili fries. You know, your regular breakfast items. We also went to the breakfast buffet, which had normal breakfast food, after we got ready to go.
Our tour today was a bus tour that drove us all around Montreal. We stopped at the
Notre Dame Basilica of Montréal. This Basilica is the first gothic revival church in Montreal and is designated Montreal’s mother church. It’s also considered one of the most beautiful basilicas in the world. I can vouch for that, I’ve been to a few. The lighting in Notre Dame Basilica is amazing and the dramatic design bridges the gap between art and religion. The stained glass windows depict the history of Montreal instead of religious stories, which is not done very often.
The second stop we made was to the Bank of Montreal, Canada’s oldest bank. This bank almost looked like Gringotts Bank in Harry Potter. It was built with traditional marble floors, gilt molding, stone pillars and had brass and iron gates mixed with modern fixtures and had museum pieces placed thorough out the lobby. The Bank of Montreal also issued its own bank notes at one point.
Before we returned from our excursion we made a mini hike up to Mount Royal Chalet in Mount Royal park. The chalet was built on top of Mount Royal as a project to stimulate the economy during the great depression. It’s a social space with large windows, murals of Montreal during the French regime a cafe. It looks like a great hall that would make a really good event venue. The view of Montreal from the chalet is amazing.
After we got back we had lunch and headed right back out to explore the city. We came across a lot of the places that we saw earlier this morning on our bus tour. The route the bus driver took around Montreal made these places seem a lot further away. Most of it was in walking distance. We also went back to the area around Cirque du Soleil, obstacle course and the ferris wheel. We walked around the shops and found a few eateries.
We had dinner at the buffet tonight, walked around the ship for a while, spent some time in the explorer’s lounge and went back to the rooms for the night. We walked a lot today!
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