The sky was blue when I got up today, so I decided to head up to Parc Mont Royal (Mount Royal Park). I knew that there was predicted snowfall late this afternoon so I wanted to get up the hill before midday. It’s only a few kilometres from my hotel, and apart from the ice and snow turning into sludge on the footpaths, it would be a nice walk.

It looked like more snow had fallen overnight. The snow moving machines were still out this morning.

I took some photos as I ascended the tracks to the top of the Park. It was heavier going than I thought. There were nice easy pathways around the mount with very low gradients, but I wanted to get to the Chalet du Mont-Royal to get some good photos with a bright blue sky. Thus I took some of the steeper trails. At the bottom of the mount, the sky was about 80% blue, and 20% cloud. By the time I got to the Chalet, it was 100% cloud. Bummer.

But the reality is that I got so much enjoyment from the journey, that was what counted. So many couples, groups of friends wandering along the pathways, some skiers too. And on the way back, more skiers and a cyclist. They have bicycles with fat wheels that ride really well on the snow. Unfortunately the cycle hire shops are usually closed in December so I have not been able to hire one myself.

Some photos from the journey upwards.

 

In the second last photo (also in the last but not as easy to see), is the separation of the track for skiers (to the right) from those on foot or bicycle.

Some photos from the front of the Chalet.

 

The first of the above photos shows a plaque to Jacques Cartier (1494-1557). He was a French explorer who is known as being the one who claimed Canada (Iroquois word “kanata” meaning village) for the French.

I had unfortunately not layered my clothing properly this morning. My outside top was inside against my skin, with my inside top being outside. The role of the inside top is to keep the moisture inside so my outer top would be dry. Instead, after an hour at the summit, I was soaking wet and this was giving me chills, so instead of wandering over to the iced up pond on the top of Mont Royal, I headed into the chalet for a coffee and biscuit and then headed back down to my hotel to change.

I swapped gear for a new set of thermals and different jacket, and then headed off to the Underground City. Not having been there before, it took me a little while to work out how to get into the underground city. In the end, I just took the stairs of a hotel down to their basement and looked around for some direction signs. I was then able to follow a group of other people until I got my bearings (I had a map of the underground city on my phone to follow).

All of the large buildings in the city area have underground shops, linked together by tunnels, mostly filled with more shops (including some multistorey shopping centres) and the underground railway, but some being literal tunnels. These are linked together so that you can get around half of the city underground without having to walk along the streets with the snow, cold, wet etc.

I walked about 4 kilometres through the various shops and tunnels and train stations.  I don’t know how busy it is in spring and summer, but it was certainly extremely busy when I went for my walk.

I ended up at the Eaton Centre which is a 5 storey shopping complex with a food hall taking up most of the lower floor, and a max museum at the very top. I wandered around for about half an hour and then bought a newspaper and headed off to the food hall for dinner. I ended up at a Japanese stall and bought a beef noodle and vegetables plate.

The one thing I notice about the pricing here is that, even though Canada has a 15% VAT like our GST, unlike in Australia they don’t add it into any pricing that is advertised. You have to remember to add it yourself or they will ask you for it, and sometimes it takes a couple of seconds to remember why they are asking for more money that they advertise the good or service for.

The main items in the newspaper were Liberal fundraising, University hazing and initiation rituals and how bad they are, what voting system they want, and agreeing on the terms under which Canada is going to legalise marijuana. So nothing really different from Australia. The university initiation has been banned for a period of time due to one of the events being quite out there. But they don’t seem to want to ban them forever, instead only when the media gets hold of a story. So next year, it’ll all be on again in all likelihood.

I then wandered back to the hotel. On the way I took a few shots of Christmas decorations, and a pile of snow (scraped up by the machines into piles along the side of the road – presumably waiting for it to melt and flow into the drainage), outside the Bell Centre (home of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team). The rotating beacon that throws the light at the top of the first photo sits on the top of the Place Ville Marie, where the Observation Deck is also situated.