We had a staggered rise-and-shine today as we settled in to a morning with nothing scheduled. I eventually rose, tweaked a few photos from yesterday and then made my way to the Parma Café where I had a very nicely made cappuccino and a still warm croissant (melt) – what a perfect start!
Despite being mid-morning the streets were hopping as a kinetic energy of colours, costumes and cultures started to form patterns in the street: today was the Fierté Montréal parade and our hotel sits just behind the starting line. Huge swaths of colourful fabrics were being spread out on sidewalks, beads, boas and bangles glittered, and the bass was beginning to drift from block to block.
When I reached our hotel room again, everyone was up and enjoying Sylvain’s donuts for breakfast! We put some things for the day in pockets and purses, grabbed some sunscreen and a map, and made our way out into the streets to take it in. Véro had recommended that we head for the Gay Village as that’s where all the excitement would be, and its also where the parade would finish up. Mimi directed us to Station Guy-Concordia where we hopped back on the Metro and zipped along to Station Beaudry.
Walking out into the street was like being Dorothy opening the door to Oz – so many bright colours! Balloons and banners everywhere. We were on Rue Sainte-Catherine here and the only traffic was pedestrian. We walked slowly eastward parallel to the parade route enjoying the overwhelming good vibe.
It was now early afternoon so we ducked into a Second Cup for some snacks and decided it would be prudent to head down to the parade route, The parade had started at roughly noon back at Rue Drummond, so we turned right and eventually settled at Boulevard René-Levésque and Rue Montcalm next to the street barricade. We nonetheless waited quite a while for the parade to come by, but around 1:30pm the advance police cars were zooming up and reminding people as to how far back from the parade they should be.
The parade itself was of course the apex of the colour and culture we’d been witnessing all day. The parade was arranged into colour “sections” corresponding to the rainbow, with red themed floats and costumes sailing by first. Several notable guests were among the first to arrive, and we had understood that Trudeau and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, the first openly gay Prime Minister of Ireland were also in the parade but we did not see them – maybe they didn’t make it to the end.
According the Montreal Gazette, “there were roughly 7,000 participants in the 2017 parade, comprised of 270 contingents and six themed floats matching the colours of the rainbow”. It was also of special note that the parade was “led by members of local Indigenous communities, as a way of acknowledging the fact that the city is on traditional Mohawk land.”
We stayed for red. orange and yellow, and as green started to roll by we decided that we’d been in direct sunshine for long enough and wandered back along the shaded streets to the Metro. We backtracked a little to Station Saint-Laurent and transferred to the 55 and started up the mountain.
Schwartz’s Deli is located just before Rue Napoléon where we got off. As usual, and even at 3:40pm, there was a line for the restaurant, but on such a beautiful day we were not inclined to be inside anyway so we used the Take Out side of the shop to order our sandwiches, a giant pickle and some fries. The busy, friendly atmosphere was matched only by the smell of smoked meat which must have infused every fibre many decades ago.
We walked the few blocks from here to Parc Jeanne-Mance where great open green spaces welcome nappers, slackliners, children, dogs and their walkers, and folks from every corner. We found a picnic table and opened our lunches and were very happy to have sandwiches that lived up to their considerable reputations. I may have been the only one to get all the way around my meal, but we all finished full and happy. We sat for awhile then under the trees and watched people go by as distant drumming floated through the air.
The drumming, of course, was one of the main reasons we had headed toward Mount Royal this afternoon. Every Sunday from mid-morning and apparently lasting until sundown a spontaneous community of drummers gathers at the foot of the Monument à sir George-Étienne Cartier and the Tam Tam takes over. A totally free-spirit activity that sees hippies alongside hipsters and drummers that appear to be representing from around the world. The form is organic and jazzy, moving from simple beats to complex patterns with sub-rhythms being maintained and woven through. It’s a completely entrancing experience and we were held in the audience for some time. It’s “lit”.
Mount Royal Park is quite wonderful on a Sunday afternoon and we spent the remainder of our afternoon into the early evening wandering through it. From the drummers and the dreamers we moved up the paths past lookouts all the way to La Croix du Mont-Royal. After some discussion and a bit of help from Google we determined that Mount Royal is actually a very similar height (233m) to PKOLS (Mount Doug – 229m) in our own back yard. Hmmm…
From here we walked the much slower decline to the west, passing by Belvédère Kondiaronk, the Chalet du Mont Royal, Manoir Smith and Lac aux Castors. It was a perfect day for such a walk.
Finally we reached Chemin de la Côte-des-Neiges where we caught a 165 south toward our hotel. We stopped briefly at the drugstore to pick up a few snacks, replacement ear buds and a few other things, then walked back to our hotel.
After a call to the desk we realized that dinner would stop being served at 9pm and the pool would close at 10pm, and as it was already after 8pm we decided to have dinner first. There aren’t many good reasons to have dinner at your restaurant hotel unless it is dining of considerable note in and of itself – unfortunately this was not the case tonight. The quality of the food on the limited menu was fine, but certainly not worth the price we paid.
The swim, though was nicer. Le Nouvel Hotel has an outdoor pool that, while tiny, is heated and refreshing. We splashed around between 9pm and 10pm before deciding it was time to bring our day to a close. We retired to our room, read and surfed for awhile, looked at our day’s pictures and thought about what we’d like to do tomorrow.
