May 13, 2018. Kingston, ON to Montreal, QC.

We had breakfast at the hotel, and then went for a walk to take photos of a sign we saw on our drive in last night. We did not see any turtles.

We packed up our stuff, gassed up the car and headed east toward Montreal. It was a pleasant drive until we got into the city and then it got pretty crazy--bridges, tunnels, and construction, oh my! In the rest of the Canadian provinces everything is posted in 2 languages: English and French. In Quebec, signs are only posted in French. I've been listening to French language CDs to get used to hearing and speaking the language. It's still a culture shock to have to read and translate while driving!

We found our hotel, checked in, and went for a walk. We walked about a mile to a place we'd heard of for lunch (Schwartz's Deli) but the line was too long so we went across the road to a Portuguese restaurant and it was delicious! Then we walked down St. Laurent Blvd. heading toward Old Montreal. We had to pass through Chinatown to get there.

We found the Basilica of Notre Dame and took some photos inside and out. We're hoping to go back there another day and find it not in shadow.

The windows in the Basilica represent events that happened in the early days of Montreal.

The streets are quite narrow in Old Montreal, many of them one-way. I was glad I did not try to drive down here! We walked to the Tourist information center and talked to a young man who gave us directions to the plaques honoring our ancestors. When he heard I was from near Detroit he told us of the plaque for Antoine LaMothe Cadillac, founder of Detroit. Of course we went there too!

We walked down to the Museum of Montreal, which is on the site on which Montreal was founded in 1642. There is a plaque there commemorating our 8th great grandfather, Jacques Archambault, digging the first well in the new city of Montreal.

We walked to the Bank of Montreal building to see a stone on the building naming it as the site where our 7th great grandfather, Urbain Tessier, received his land grant, the eighth land grant to be assigned in Montreal. We were somewhat dismayed to find that we'd already been within sight of the building earlier this afternoon--it is just across the square from Notre Dame Basilica.

Finally we got on a city bus to get back to the neighborhood of our hotel. Here it is: the Armor Manoir Cherbrooke. We were very glad to get home! After a break we walked out for dinner--total mileage on foot today: 9.2.