We arrived in Montreal late Friday night, at which point some people were a little too happy to be out of the car. There were lengths of fabric picturesquely draped across the foot of the beds which really served no purpose except to be picturesque…at least until we came along:

How do I get out of this thing?!

I was laughing so hard at this point I'm surprised I took a decent picture.

The next day was Victoria’s birthday, so at her request the first place we went was the Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art.

Museum of Contemporary Art

It was okay–Victoria liked it better than the rest of us, of course, but even she was a little disappointed. We saw a lot of Tousignant’s work and not much else–they were heavy on the temporary exhibit and light on the permanent.

When we were done there we got a snack lunch and then walked several blocks to Old City (which is not really that different from the more modern parts) to visit the Notre Dame Basilica, which was gorgeous.

You can see the Basilica at the end of the street.

Looking toward the altar

It was built in the 1820s and so was not nearly as old as the cathedrals we saw in Europe, and it had no dead people buried beneath its floors (the girls had a kind of disgusted fascination with that when they were little), but it still was beautiful. And it has a pipe organ!

Yay for pipe organs!

Unfortunately, we didn’t get to hear it played, but I imagine it sounds wonderful–the acoustics must be great in there. There also was a  pulpit with the most convoluted staircase that I have ever seen:

Pulpit with crazy winding staircase

We wandered around a little after that–it was a little chilly, but not too bad, and we were having fun:

Made you look

Part two coming soon…

~Amy~