Parlez-vous Francais? (Montreal)

Today, as we left Ottowa on our way to Montreal, I took a nap in the car.  When I fell asleep the world was in English, when I woke up, everything was in French!  All the signs!  Very disconcerting--I felt like I was in a Stephen King short story.  Anyway, more traffic slowdowns and closed streets, but we found our hotel--way better than the one in Ottowa; in comparison, practically posh!

After checking in around 1:00, we still had all day to roam around Montreal.  Now, Montreal is part of Quebec and they speak French.  In Ottowa, all of the signs were bilingual.  Here in Montreal, all of the signs are in French.  A few businesses have their logos in English and a few signs are translated, but that is rare.  I am not fluent in French, but I know enough to translate most signs and everyone here seems to be bilingual.  We headed first for the old area of town by the wharf.  Old being 1700s.  We passed through a park with huge chess boards set up.  We were hoping for Wizard Chess (Harry Potter reference), but just regular chess, really big.

Huge chess boards with games going on.

Then we reached the old part of town.  Old, gray stone buildings, fountains, and the wharf.  Very pituresque.  You could totally see men in knee breeches and tall socks striding around, women in very big skirts.  Lot of artists had stalls--jewelry, hand painted photos, textiles, paintings, etc.  

The old town

Notre Dame (note the tall skyscraper in the background!)

A lot of museums as well by the wharf.  One had an interesting sculpture with a pot that appeared to have fallen off a tall pedestal, laying on the steps.  Anneliese decided to investigate and almost got stuck.

Anneliese doing her hermit crab imitation.

Joshua wanted to visit Chinatown, so we did--a few blocks of Asian restaurants and cheap tourist shops.  Interesting, to see French signs next to Chinese characters on stores and displays.

Entrance to Chinatown

All over Montreal are row houses.  No single-family houses and few apartment buildings.  Just lots and lots of row houses, though some were split up into apartments.  They were all meant to look old, with stonework and wooden detailing and gingerbread, but were modern.

Row houses

I forgot to mention yesterday, as we were driving through Toronto, I felt like I was in a science fiction movie.   The freeway was several stories above ground, going straight through the city.  Modern skyscrapers were everywhere around us, it was a surreal effect.  Anyway, tomorrow, we go to Quebec City and stay a few hours past that so that we can get to PEI without spending 12 hours in the car!