Rosa and took our first trip together to Montréal this weekend. We wanted to see a fashion exhibit at a museum, then shop and look around.
Saturday morning we drove into Montréal. Our first destination was Le Musée des Beaux-Arts to see the Jean-Paul Gaultier exhibit. There were many examples of his haute couture costumes. Rosa is a fashion junky, and I’m somewhat interested. Jean-Paul, over his long career, has explored so many areas of fashion, setting trends and pushing boundaries.
Next we walked around the Saint Catherine area for Rosa to shop but she didn’t find much – the area was mostly chain stores. So we left and I dropped Rosa off in the Saint Laurent area.
I drove south to Circuit Gilles Villeneuve – the Formula-1 race track. The track is actually a public road. However the speed limit is only 30 frustrating km/h. I set my cruise control and started lapping very slowly around the course. The security guards all waved as I drove by time after time. I’m sure I was not the first to do this. The circuit was split with a row of pylons, consigning vehicle traffic on one side and bikes and rollerbladers on the other.
Then I left to drive north to Lamborghini Montréal. I lost my Lamborghini hat at Mosport and wanted to buy a replacement. I went in but did not see the boutique mentioned on their website. One of the salesmen came over and asked if I was looking for something. I mentioned the boutique and he pointed to a single counter by the door. They had no hats.
I picked up Rosa and we checked in at Le Place d’Armes Hotel in the Vieux-Port (Old Port). The room was huge and very luxurious! We had dinner in the hotel at Aix Cuisine du Terroir. It was delicious. Afterwards, we went for a walk. It was a lovely warm summer evening. We walked through Chinatown and Rosa had flashbacks from when she lived in China. On our way back, there was a crowd of people looking down at the highway. There was a TV truck there as well. A 25-ton section of the tunnel roof had collapsed on the Autoroute Ville-Marie earlier in the day. Luckily no one was hurt.
We spent the next day window shopping. We started in the Vieux-Port at the Bonsecours Market. The weather in the morning was excellent and perfect for a walking/shopping tour of Old Montréal. We slowly wandered our way towards the Rue University shopping area. However the weather turned nasty in the afternoon while we were indoors. The rain outside became torrential. Unfortunately we left our umbrella in the car in the morning. Despite promising to never leave the umbrella behind again, we had to buy yet another umbrella just so that we could leave the mall.
During a short break from the downpour, we managed to walk down Saint Catherine towards our dinner spot. We had to stop again in the entrance of Christ Church Cathedral when the rain picked up again. We were drenched. During the next break in the downpour, we ran to the Restaurant Julien.
When we finished, we called for a taxi to take us from the restaurant back to the parking at Quais du Vieux-Port. It was nearly three hours to drive home through a traffic jam and continuing rain squalls.