Lovely day again – nice and sunny and warm. I think it was around the 30 degrees mark.
We got a 2 day Hop on hop off pass. The round trip was about 2 hours and it enabled us to work out which attractions we wanted to spend more time seeing. If you hop off – another bus will come by each 15 minutes until around the 5.30 mark.
First one was the Basilica Notre Dame de Montreal. As you can see – we are in Canada but French is spoken and all street signs are in French. Fortunately English was the language of the guide and most people can speak English. One of the questions I had was what is the difference between a Basilica and a Cathedral. Well now I know and you are about to know too. A Basilica has the remains of a saint and a Cathedral is the church of the area Bishop. Hope I got that right.
As I have commended in the past about Catholic Buildings I have visited in Europe and South America – this one is no different – you can see – no expense was spared building it – but at least – in Montreal we did not see the beggars outside looking for money. This one is a money making venture – $6.00 per person to get in and two other tours inside cost more. My ticket was number 7,784,015 so I can guess that 7.8 million people have also paid $6 to visit.
It was very impressive and I believe they have a light show each night – more money.
Visited Chinatown and had lunch. Very good.
We got back on the bus and went to see St Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal. This building is very different to the one in town – it is big – can seat 10,000 people – but is very plain inside and was free. The dome is said to be the third largest in the world.
Montreal has a large area for outdoor entertainment and tonight had a “Lots of laughs” event.
What it was were lots of comedian doing street shows – some were good and some spoke only in French.
And good day and night was had by all.