My grand-mother wanted to do something special with me this week and suggested we go to a museum. I hadn’t been to Pointe-à-Callière in at least fifteen years, so that’s what I suggested. This museum is built over the foundation of some of the oldest buildings in Montreal and the highlight is to go under ground and walk through the old stone foundations.
It’s been easy to see my grand-mother this week since she moved to Chambly and is now living a kilometre away from my mother’s house. I walked over this afternoon and she greeted me with a light lunch, then we headed to Montreal.
Pointe-à-Callière is located in the most scenic part of the island, the Old Port. Walking through the cobblestone streets is just like being in Europe. The whole area is slowly being gentrified and more new structures are springing up, but I don’t think we will ever lose the look and atmosphere of the Old Port.
Our tour of the museum started with an excellent multi-media presentation about highlights in Montreal history, from pre-history to today. I found it to be a little too upbeat and it glossed over the more negative issues like the French/English disputes, but I’m being a tad picky. For a twenty minute overview, it painted a pretty accurate portrait.
The special exhibit this fall is one about Rapa Nui, Easter Island, and I enjoyed it very much. I discovered that I knew almost nothing about Easter Island, such as the important fact that it is still inhabited today!
We then headed downstairs and and took a quick jaunt through the foundations, the highlight of which are the sewer systems that were way ahead of their times. This archaeological site takes you through more than 360 years of history, from a 17th century Catholic cemetery to an 18th century marketplace to the 19th century sewer systems. The whole thing is rather labyrinthine and we had to get directions back to the surface!
Merci pour la belle journée, grand-maman!
lunch was pretty enough for a picture!
my grand-mother’s balcony overlooks my childhood… only back then, in the ’80’s, there were only fields and trees instead of all those houses
my mother worked in that building for much of my childhood and we lived right across from it
Montreal skyline from the Champlain bridge
Old Port–contrast of the old and the new
more of the Old Port
Pointe-à-Callière
old foundations
more old foundations
in 1900, Montreal was Canada’s metropolis
the old sewer system
the old sewer system with a photograph showing what the exit would have looked like
more old sewage systems
walking out is like entering Europe
we walked out onto a movie set!
crossing the Victoria bridge, the first to connect the island of Montreal to the South Shore
Champlain Bridge seen from the Victoria Bridge
the ugliest building on the South Shore!!!
I love the street signs in Chambly because all the street names are explained; Lebel was named after a mayor
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