Left Victoria this morning for a few days in Vancouver, visiting friends and taking in a Cirque du Soleil show called Amaluna. Bright clear day in Victoria and gorgeous stormy day in Vancouver. We enjoyed poking around on Granville Island, especially at Circle Craft, and had another amazing meal at our favourite: Vij’s. Also a great visit with a friend who has just started a new life in the big city. We’re proud of you LJS!
Two days ago, on a rainy and warm December 1, the city threw an outdoor party they called Snow Day. It was a well attended family event in Centennial Square with ice sculptures, large piles of “snow” (probably the Zamboni shavings from local arenas) for sliding and throwing, refreshments and a machine that periodically blasted snowflakes out onto the crowd. It was actually quite magical!
After a short rest at the hotel, we ventured out again, back to Musée des beaux-arts. Until January 20, they have a special exhibit: Once upon a time… Impressionism, Great French Paintings from the Clark. On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday evenings from 5 pm, the admission is only $10. It’s a beautiful show in a beautiful part of the museum. There were a lot of people visiting. It was wonderful to see pieces by Renoir, Pissarro, Boldini and one of my favourites: Danseuses au foyer by Degas. We wandered home admiring shop windows and bought some dinner and airplane snacks on the way back to the hotel. A memorable adventure to be sure!
We wandered back towards the Old Port through these wonderful neighbourhoods, looking for a few galleries and shops we had found on the internet. Three galleries we recommend visiting are: Arsenal, Darling Foundry and Parisian Laundry. Back to Vieux-Montréal and a warming snack. We ended the day having a delicious Vietnamese dinner in Chinatown.
Tuesday morning we were up early and headed out to explore the neighbourhoods of St-Henri, Little Burgundy and Griffintown. We could have taken the subway, but it was a clear, windy day and we decided to walk. From the bottom of St-Sulpice we turned right and headed out along the port and continued along the Lachine Canal. The walking and biking trails were unforgettable. Lots to see and very few people. I suspect in the summer and on most weekends more would be out enjoying this part of the city.
Leaving Mile End we headed down rue St-Urbain to rue Rachel and entered Parc du Mont-Royal through Parc Jeanne-Mance and past Monument à Sir-George-Étienne-Cartier. We thought we may as well walk up the paths a bit since we were there! So off we went. There were a lot of people walking and running. We made it up as far as Chalet du Mont-Royal and took in the extraordinary view from the Kondiaronk Belvedere. It was almost dark as we made our way down rue Peel towards our chosen dinner destination: Chinatown.
For our first full day in Montréal, we met up with some friends who were visiting from Toronto. We enjoyed some yummy crêpes in Vieux-Montréal at a café called Muru, wandered around in Chinatown, explored Musée des Beaux-Arts (which is free for the permanent exhibits) and then left our friends and had delicious salads for dinner at M Café.
Spent part of today photographing and preparing Etsy posts for some new Festive Cards. Here is a sampling, plus a photo which Taxicab “helped” with.
Jeudi 8 novembre: we spent about three hours at Musée National des Beaux-Arts du Quebec, a gorgeous gallery museum on the edge of the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. This museum has an impressive collection of Quebec artwork dating from the 17th Century. A special exhibit of Art and Nature in the Middle Ages was underway while we were there. We also felt privileged to see a free concert by students of the Conservatory of Music in one of the auditoriums during our visit.
Spent a few hours exploring Quebec City’s Musée de la Civilisation. They have a very interesting exhibit of Nigerian art right now. Also walked over to the Public Market which, even at this time of year, has lots of local produce and products: especially apples, beautiful beautiful apples!











































