Christmas in Canada: Québec City to Montréal

On December 28th, before we said our goodbyes to Québec City and headed to Montréal, we took a little detour north of the old city center to see a natural wonder of the area, Montmorency Falls, a waterfall taller than Niagara.  After admiring the beautiful falls, we hit the road for our nearly 3-hour drive to Montréal.  A Canadian road trip definitely had to include a stop at Tim Horton’s (essentially Canada’s Dunkin’ Donuts—we had to compare the coffee and donuts, of course, and we have actually switched our home coffee to Tim Horton’s now btw) and a gas station to pick up All Dressed and Ketchup potato chips (Canada’s most popular flavors—All Dressed is a keeper).  Once we arrived in Montréal, we headed to the northwest slope of Mont-Royal (the little mountain that gives Montréal its name) to see Oratoire-St-Joseph, the world’s largest shrine to Jesus’s earthly father and Canada’s patron saint.  The 60m-high dome is the second largest in the world, only after St. Peter’s in Rome.  To me, the most beautiful parts of the Oratory are the Crypt Church and the Votive Chapel.  They are built into the mountainside and part of the Oratory’s foundations.  I found them so beautiful and spiritual, that I did not take any photographs in those areas.      

Our hotel in Montréal was across from Square Dorchester and Place au Canada and our room had a beautiful view of Cathédrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde, a quarter-scale replica of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  We enjoyed a delicious meal of steak frites at, well, Steak Frites.  Only complaint, it’s bring-your-own-wine, which is hard for a tourist..we didn’t do a lot of wine shopping.  Canada in general had a lot of strange drinking laws—don’t plan on taking your kids to a brewery like in the States, or even eating with them in a restaurant that has a bar (you’ll be put in a different room, maybe even all by yourselves).  Anyways, I digress—yummy dinner, Jonathan’s favorite (perhaps because by now the Buckley’s was working and he could taste again) and an early night to get ready for a big day exploring Montréal.

{the little specks to the left of the falls are actually ice climbers—they really embrace winter up here and don’t shy away from outdoor activities!}

{st. joseph’s oratory}

{after enjoying the sunset from the oratory, we checked in to our hotel in downtown montréal.  our room had a beautiful view of cathédrale marie-reine-du-monde.}