Le mont réal

You might wonder if this photo was taken on the same trip that I've been telling you about the past several posts. Mountain scenery, quiet lakes, charming little towns, and baseball ceremonies...how did a big city get mixed up with these?

It's all about proximity. Since Montréal isn't far from the Adirodacks, and neither my sister nor I had ever been there, we decided to take the last day of our vacation north of the border. Laissez les bon temp roulez!

We didn't have much time to spend there (just about 24 hours).  So in spite of wanting to see some of the city's famous museums, historic sites, and night life, we knew we'd have to pick and choose. We opted to just immerse ourselves in the general ambiance and see as much as we could of what makes Montréal unique.  

First up was the wonderful park that encompasses the mont itself. You can see part of this pretty impressive hill at the end of the street at the left. In fact, walking up the street from our hotel to get to the park entrance reminded us of some of the steep streets in San Francisco.

Although the trails within the park leveled out some, making a spiral around the hill, we still didn't make it all the way to the top. But it was a very enjoyable trek, one that we shared with locals and tourists alike...

In addition to the nice surface, convenient stairs, and other well-kept amenities, there were some funky touches along the trail, too, like this sculpture that we thought looked like a horse trough...

We just figured that horse-drawn carriages used to use this trail, too. And that's probably true, but this fountain has a special purpose: it's a memorial for a no doubt an important park patron who was a "lover of horses," according to a plaque on its side.

There were natural sights of interest along the way, too, like this impressive exposed face of slate...

...and some semi-natural features, like this attractive lake...

I was not very good about identifying landmarks in this post;
that's L'Oratoire Saint-Joseph in the distance

The terminus of the hike for us was the Chalet du Mont-Royal, a handsome plaza/cafe/meeting space with terrific views of the city. Here's the inside of the structure:

And here's the plaza:

But the views are the main attraction...

looking east

using a sighting marker to see some distant mountains...and some cool clouds!

city and trees

 As you can probably tell from these photos, the landscaping at the Chalet was gorgeous, too...

we also saw these attractive plants elsewhere in the city but have no idea what they are

On the way back down into town, we enjoyed seeing several buildings belonging to McGill University, which is scenically perched on one shoulder of the Mont Réal...

After walking up quite an appetite, we were ready for what we knew would be a first-class meal. Then, suitably refreshed, we strolled around some more before hitting the sack. [I was actually kidding when I included "night life" in our list of things to do in Montréal.  ]

I'll share some of the other sights from this fascinating place in upcoming posts.