January 13, 2010

Montreal - Downtown

It's been almost three months since my trip to Montreal so I better quickly post up details of the trip before I forget them.

I didn't know until I started researching about Montreal that it is the largest French-speaking city outside Paris. It also has a distinct European flavour, very unlike cities in North America, and hence the moniker "Paris of the West." One of the afternoons I took a walk around the downtown area.

Basilique-Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde is a copy of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, though much smaller. It was built between 1875 and 1894 as the headquarters for Montréal's Roman Catholic bishop.


Right smack in the shopping area of Rue Ste-Catherine is the neo-Gothic Cathédrale Christ Church.


Nearby is McGill University, Canada's most prestigious university, home to over 33,000 students. It was founded following a donation from a Scottish-born fur trader, James McGill. This beautiful central campus ground has an eclectic mix of modern concrete and glass structures alongside older stone buildings.

A mixture of old...

...and new, with lots of greens (at that time of the year, yellow and orange) in between


Inside the campus ground is Musee Redpath, housed in a building dating from 1882. The museum's main draws are its collection of Egyptian mummies.


I also visited Musée d'Art Contemporain de Montréal (Montréal's Museum of Contemporary Art). Among the exhibits were installations, video displays, and examples of pop and abstract art, though I couldn't really appreciate nor understand them.



And this is venue of the congress I attended, Le Palais des Congres de Montreal (Montreal Convention Centre).

2 comments:

jazzmint said...

wah nice place..eh did u lug ur dslr there to take the pics?

A Mom's Diary said...

smallkucing - thanks

Jazz - unfortunately I didn't, and I kinda regret it. I only took a backpack on board and since I need the bring along my breast pump, I had no space for the dSLR.