Trip to Montreal: Day 4

 Those who have been to Montreal will instantly recognize the iconic cobbled street. Yes, St Paul street or Rue St Paul in Vieux Montreal or Old Montreal. 

The day started reaaallly slow and the tempo continued the same for rest of the day. We made it to the breakfast floor in the last half hour before their closing time. Out of the three days we stayed in this place this was the first day we sat down there to eat. The previous two days we had to hurry up for the city tours to Quebec City and Montreal respectively. Tuesday was ours to do what we wanted and when we wanted. That sometimes is not a good thing because you end up doing nothing ! Hotel check out time was noon. Check in time for the next hotel was 4:00 pm. I called the place and asked if we could check in earlier and was pleasantly surprised to hear a yes. By noon we had checked out of Square Phillips hotel near St Catherine street, took Uber to Vieux Montreal and checked into Hotel Place D’Armes( pronounced Plaas Daam). This place is literally within a throw from Palais des Congres de Montreal ( the Montreal Convention Center) where the Annual Assembly of American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine is scheduled from Wednesday through Saturday. 

The hotel upgraded us to a bigger room which was nice. What was not that nice was that this room lacked simple things of convenience like power outlets to charge devices at convenient places like next to the bed or a tea pot or microwave to warm water for tea in the morning. I had to remind myself to not complain and be grateful to have a roof over the head. But the last hotel had surely spoilt us. If only it was close to the convention center we would not have to move from there. Oh well. It is good enough that we have a place now within less than 5 minutes walk to the conference.

Already half the day was gone by the time we moved into the new place. We simply dropped our bags and made it out of the hotel. This place stands at a prime corner right across from the famous Notre Dame Basilica. The concierge staff gave us information about the restaurants within the hotel and also in the vicinity. Yesterday Harold had driven us past this huge domed building that was the Bonsecour market. He had perked our interest by telling us that this place has vendors who sell the works of local artisans in contrast to street shops where you find souvenirs made outside of Canada. I got directions to this Bonsecour market from the concierge lady. It was just a 5 minutes walk she said. 

It was cloudy, cold and windy outside but still a tiny bit warmer than the earlier two days. We walked past a courthouse and some other remarkable buildings before crossing over to St Paul street. The Bonsecour Market was indisputably the most striking structure on this street, with its wide expanse and large blue dome reaching high up in the sky. Just as we were getting closer to the place we heard someone scream and call out to us! That was Kim and Alena who were coming out of the market! Somehow I had an inkling that we would run into them here. And we did. They were up earlier than us and were headed to see the Barbie expo and had plans to go to the hockey game later in the evening. Barbie expo has been on my list of places to visit but I wasn’t sure we could make it soon enough to join them. We decided we would keep in touch since we had each other’s phone numbers. 

Taking leave of them we finally entered this market. The building was tall and huge but the shops were only on one floor and not more than a dozen. But they had some really neat stuff. There was jewelry, maple products, handicrafts, purses, scarves, shawls and lots of innovative souvenirs. We got a few things for the kids and friends. Over 2 hours were spent at the place and that too mostly in 2 shops out of the dozen! Finally we decided to go find a place to eat. Out on St Paul street there were many restaurants, except they were closed ! We finally found one pizza restaurant and turned out to be the only customers in this huge place that sold some antiques and plaques with quotes. While the lone man running the shop made our pizza and poutine( yes, you can’t visit Canada and not have poutine at least once), I looked outside his window and saw the giant Ferris wheel in the distance and a cargo train with colorful graffiti go by. Apparently this is the third biggest Ferris wheel in the world. The shopkeeper in Bonsecour market advised us to not go on this wheel until it’s a sunny day because you can’t see much on cloudy days. The pizza was good, the poutine was not my thing. 

After lunch we went back to Bonsecour market to see the remaining shops. Picked some maple candy this time. Then resumed our stroll on St Paul street exploring small shops with souvenirs. In between these shops we spotted a creperie! A wooden staircase led up one floor to this small room with 6-7 tables. A lanky young guy was manning the place. He showed us the menu and took our order. Initially having declared he wasn’t hungry Abhay couldn’t resist ordering a strawberry crepe for himself. I preferred the mango one. The guy perked a fresh Ataulfo mango from Mexico for my crepe before proceeding to make our crepes on the griddles. The fresh fruit on the warm crepes drizzled with local maple syrup and powdered sugar was just a heavenly concoction. We were two happy souls as we got down that wooden staircase and continued our walk back to our hotel. 

Once we got near the hotel however I remembered the registration for the conference was open from 4-7 pm at the convention center. It was past 6 pm. We hurried down the street and entered the huge place and after asking a few security officers we made it via the escalator to the second floor where the registration booths were set up. The multicolored glass on a large outer wall of the convention center was a fascinating backdrop for photos as was a row of local tree trunks from Mont Royal that were painted bright pink and set up in a section on the ground floor. After completing the registration formalities that’s exactly what I did. A photo session with these unique backdrops. Next 3-4 days I’m going to spending entire long days in this place. But my photographer will not be there to indulge me! So this was the time! 

It was almost 7 pm by the time we were done. Just before the exit to the place there stood a Mexican restaurant that was bustling with guests, likely attendees of the conference. Instead of roaming around on the streets to find a place for dinner we decided to eat here. A shared fajita and a margarita with mango, pineapple and strawberry in one was a perfect meal.

As you can see I could very well have described the day in one sentence: Checked out of one hotel, checked into another and spent the day shopping on St Paul street !! 

Saree was another personal favorite. Ajrakh on mulberry silk made specially for me by my dear friend Juned Khatri of Ajrakhpur. I had requested him to use the design borrowed from the traditional malirs ( shawls) of the nomadic people of the region. The motifs are testimonies of their lifestyle and described in an earlier post.