TOUR OF MONTREAL

The Grayline tour of Montreal we took was excellent.  Next to our bus, greeted by my blue-bar pigeon and friends.

Tour guide.

There are "small" bumblebees in downtown Montreal with a story.

• Three founders of Alveole were beekeepers.  
• To bridge the gap between city dwellers and nature, they built a rooftop hive, starting with 10,000 bumblebees and a queen.  In mid-summer, the population grows to 50,000.
• They pollinate the flowers of  downtown Montreal.
• Are docile and do not sting people.

Mary, Queen of the World Cathedral.

Notre-Dame Basilica.

The English Pug and French Poodle.

Next, Chinatown.

More of Montreal.

Yes, a McDonald's.

Stopped by a shopping area.

More of Montreal.

Approaching Olympic stadium where the 1976 Summer Olympics were held.

McGill University.

Definitely a university city.  McGill, at #27, has the highest world ranking.  Enrollment:

Université de Montréal (UdeM): ~66,972 students (includes affiliated schools)

Concordia University: ~46,000 students

McGill University: ~37,888 to 40,000 students

UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal): ~40,000 students

HEC Montréal (Affiliated with UdeM): ~13,500 students

Polytechnique Montréal (Affiliated with UdeM): ~10,200 students [1, 2, 3]

Mont Royal.

Return to downtown Montreal.  The city deteriorated in the second half of the 1900's, and has more recently been rebounding, evidenced by a lot of re-modeling and street construction.  There are serious restrictions about altering the outside of historic structures, which are of pre-1940 vintage, and number close to 70,000.  Included are 240 former churches which have been re-purposed to non-religious uses. You can do whatever you want to alter inside a preserved building.  Why so many church reconversions?  The Quiet Revolution occurred, mostly in Quebec in the 1960s when many lost the faith, and expanded thrroughout the country.  Below, McGill University.

Returned just in time for our Club lounge appetizers and drinks.  Pasta Bolognese was the special dish.

Two days ago, our Chinese restaurant.

Yesterday, next door, a Korean restaurant, Hanyang Jokbal.  Very authentic.

That omnipresent Korean green bottle.

To close:

On March 20, 1969, Lennon and Ono married, and subsequently hosted their first “Bed-in for Peace” event in at the Amsterdam Hilton (Amsterdam, the Netherlands). During their second bed-in in late May into June 1969 at the Queen Elizabeth Hotel in Montreal. On June 1, they invited a number of guests to be part of the Plastic Ono Band to record “Give Peace A Chance” in their hotel room.

While many people know that John Lennon’s iconic song Give Peace a Chance was written and recorded in Montréal’s Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel, most people don’t know that the room was also filled with some of the world’s most ground-breaking scholars and activists. Timothy Leary, Allen Ginsberg, Dick Gregory, Petula Clark and Tommy Smothers were among the folks singing backup on the track that is essentially holy scripture for the flower power generation.

Here is a 10-minute video about this hotel room in Montreal.  A nice write-up of all that.

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