For one reason or another, I never made it out to Saint Joseph’s Oratory the other times I visited. According to my cousin, “it’s one of the best free attractions in Montreal”.

Saint Joseph’s Oratory is Canada’s largest church, and it enshrines a statue of Saint Joseph within it, I wasn’t able to take a good photo myself of the the oratory in all its beauty, so here’s one from Wikipedia.

We weren’t allowed to go inside the main nave (where the people sit in church) of the basilica since it was closed for an event. But we were able to go to the Crypt Church on the floor below.

The statue of Saint Joseph is located in the Votive Chapel. People all over come here as a pilgrimage to pay their respects.

Since Saint Joseph’s Oratory is located on Mont Royal, there is a viewpoint nearby to look into the city.

Someone had some fun at the nearby chalet!

A short hike from there was the Mount Royal Cross. The temperature was only slightly below freezing, so it wasn’t as cold as I expected Montreal to be. I was told that it’d get much much colder in January and February.

The next place we went to was Old Montreal. It was pretty dead, even for a Sunday afternoon. It makes sense since I’m way past the busy tourist season! In the summer, all the restaurants set up patio seating outside, but it was too cold to do any of that in November.

Lastly, I went to the Underground City. Like a lot of cities that get really cold, the city has built a network of underground tunnels so that people can avoid walking outside in the cold winter. Some parts of it are actually really nice!

A piece of the Berlin wall appears in the most unlikely of places..

One of the places I wanted to go on this trip was the Biodome, which tries to recreate different ecosystems in the world to display various plants and animals that live there. Unfortunately, it doesn’t reopen until summer 2019.

Photo album: here

The outside patio seating on cobblestone roads has a nice “European feel” and the architecture of the buildings surrounding it definitely add to the atmosphere.  Store and restaurant labels being in French also makes the atmosphere feel a lot more foreign (but luckily most people in Montreal speak English).

As I have learned throughout my travels, there is always a nice church in the historical part of town, at least in this case, a basilica.  This one is called the Notre-Dame Basilica or in French, Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal.

The inside is also quite different.  I remember a lot of churches like to use ambient light to keep the interior illuminated but the main congregation hall seems to be closed to natural light except for the two windows in the ceiling.  There is a lot of “blueness” in this basilica, which I don’t think is very common.  As usual, the altar is filled with statues of religious figures.

After that, the next destination was Mount Royal, which is one of Montreal’s largest greenspaces.  There is a large artificial lake where people like to go for runs or just casual strolling.  There is also an observation area that looks down the mountain toward downtown Montreal.

A raccoon even tried to join us at the observation area.  Poor raccoon…was probably hungry too.

That night we had a nice dinner that was a partial family reunion.  I think about 15 people from my father’s side of the family came.  That was probably the first time we’ve ever all got together for a meal in a long time.  The meal was also made better by the presence of my cousin’s 15-month old daughter (first cousin once removed?).  I think the last time where everyone got together (at least partially – I wasn’t present for that one) was in the summer of 2009 when one of my cousins got married.  We all asked about one another and how everyone was doing since we hadn’t caught up in a while.  We ate for about an hour and talked probably for another 2 or 3 hours.  It was a nice get-together that doesn’t happen very often.

More photos here

Rib Fest 2012

I don’t really know why this exists, but I do know that the ribs here are absolutely delicious.  Since it was the last day of the rib fest, some of the vendors added more servings for each meal purchased (at least that’s what my cousin thought who said that they don’t usually give so much).

We ordered a pulled pork sandwich, a bunch of ribs, chicken wings.  Would have been nice if there was some veggies to balance it out, but it was delicious so I can’t really complain.

After the meal, we made our way to the boat tour of Thousand Islands.

Thousand Islands Boat Tour

I actually wondered whether or not this place actually had a thousand islands.  I was tempted to count, but let’s be realistic.  That wouldn’t work.  It would be easier to just check Wiki, and according to Wiki, the Thousand Islands area has 1864 islands.  Hmm, I guess it’s true.

One of the nice things about these islands is that rich people buy up the land on them and build houses on them that are only accessible by boat.  This adds to the scenery quite a lot.  It’s better than seeing just random islands with trees on them.  With houses, suddenly the view becomes a lot more interesting.

To top it off, there’s an actual castle on one of these islands.  It’s called Boldt Castle.  It is an unfinished castle that was originally meant as a private home for a really rich family – the Boldt Family.  It was never finished because of the of the George Boldt’s wife.  Tourists can still tour the inside of the completed part of the castle though.

After the tour, we drove back to Montreal, where we’d spend the next couple of days.  After a good rest, the next destination was Old Montreal.

More photos here