Vieux Montreal - Archaeology!

Mai 17 (Mardi)
This morning was sunny. Last night was unbelievable - Some freaking people were talking and laughing aloud right under my window at 2AM! & I couldn't sleep afterwards so I flipped through the Quebec City guide 'til 3am & forced myself to sleep 'cause I actually PLANNED to go to the Vieux Montreal (aka Old Montreal) the next morning. It was sunny so I guess I was fortunate, considering the weather has been quite unstable these days.

I took the Metro to Champ-de-Mars. Passed by the Cour municipale, Montreal City Hall (Hotel de Ville) to the Chateau Ramezay Museum.

The Cour Municipale.

The City Hall. The building was built between 1872 and 1878 and survived a fire in 1922.

It's on this balcony that the French President Genereal Charles de Gaulle shouted "Vive le Quebec libre" ("Long live free Quebec") in 1967 during Canada's centennial celebrations.

I went to the Ramezay Museum but apparently I was 10 mins early so I decided to walk around the area (& I never got back to the museum). I walked to Place de la Dauversiere (a small park), which was just right beside the museum. The tulips were beautiful~ There were a lot of kids and school buses around. Apparently, everyone "knew" today was the day to go out.

The Chateau Ramezay Museum - I'll visit it next time~

The Jean Drapeau statue in Place de la Dauversiere.

Right beside Place de la Dauversiere was Place Jacques-Cartier. It was lined with outdoor cafes, restaurants, and interesting boutique shops. There were also street musicians and street artists who draw portraits.

Walking toward Place Jacques-Cartier. The Lord Nelson monument & the old court house.

Walking along the Place Jacques-Cartier. It was used as a public market for many years.

Looking back at the Lord Nelson monument on the other end of Place Jacques-Cartier (the place where I walked from). The monument was erected in 1809 to honor Lord Nelson's victory over Napoelon's French navy at Trafalgar.

Walked down to the Vieux Port area. There's a small green area along the railway tracks and the port called Place des Vestiges.

A view of the buildings opposite from the Vieux Port from Place des Vestiges.

The neat rows of trees in Place des Vestiges. The leaves are so green! It looks as it were from a painting!

Walking along the railway tracks in Place des Vestiges and saw the Marche Bonsecours (Bonsecours Market) - my next destination.

More Vieux Port street scenes before I get to Marche Bonsecours.

The side-entrance to Marche Bonsecour. Doesn't it look a bit Greek to you?

Barche Bonsecours was inaugurated in 1847. It has a concert hall and served as a city hall in the early days of Montreal's municipal gov't. It was built from gray stone in the 1840's. The first floor has some restaurants. The second floor has some boutique stores.

Some nice spring display near the stairs at the lobby of the 2nd floor.

Stores on the 2nd level.

One of the stores - art. There are not many stores in the building and most of them are related to art.

Another store - glass art. I like the shape and colors of these pieces.

A sign of a restaurant at the ground floor of the building. The background people on the right are filming something which I have no idea about.

A close view of what they're doing. Tiffy's spying on people haha..but are they trying to pretend they're outside of the Buckingham Palace or something?!

Another look at the silvery dome of the Marche Bonsecours before I go to my next stop - Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (which was just right beside the Marche).

Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours (Our Lady of Perpetual Help Chapel) may look ordinary from the outside, but you would just fall in love with it once you're in it. This is one of my favourite place in Montreal.

The colors of the interior looks so soft. Everything looks so delicately elegant. The person who pushed the construction of this church was St. Marguerite Bourgeoys. The chapel was dedicated to the Virgin Mary in 1657.

The chapel was often referred to as the Eglise des Matelots (the Sailors' Church). At the times when traveling across Atlantic was dangerous, mariners who survived the perils of crossing the ocean in the 18th/19th-century would came to the church and thank the Virgin for her help. They would also leave lamps in small model ships as a token of appreciation. There are still many wooden ship models hanging from the ceiling in the chapel.

I think there's just something about this chapel that makes you feel warm and protected.

A side altar.

The beautiful organ at the back of the church - a Casavant organ 1910.

There's a museum in the chapel. This is where the archaeology part comes in. The archaeological site is called La Crypt in the Museum. It's right under the chapel. A guide from the museum took me (& only me!) through the secret passages to a door leading to the site. It truly looked like the arch sites I saw in my textbooks! I could even imagine the line grids on those hearth 'tho they're already taken down. Visitors were not allowed to take photos in the museum and the archaeological site so too bad I don't have cool pics to show here. To compensate, I took pics of the brochures of the museum and it has some pics of the places that I'm talking about.
The Discovery Room at the basement of the museum where there are display cases of artifcats found in the archaeological site. They had Renaissance music playing in the background so it makes you think you're back to the 17th-century.

Another pic from the brochure. The bottom section shows you what the archaeological site looks like. The middle one shows you another pic of the Dicovery Room. There's a door in the Discovery Room that leads to the arch site.

The main thing in the arch site was the stone foundation of the first chapel that was first erected in 1657. The first chapel was about the size of a large master bedroom. It was SMALL. The altar part was excavated but not where the mass probably stood because, according to some documents, 9 sisters who contracted smallpox while attending to the sick in the 17th-c. were buried here & archaeologists didn't want to "disturb" them. The place was kinda "chilly" in that sense.

The first chapel was burned down, possibly by a village fire. The guide showed me the burned nails from the wooden roof and the melted glass of the windows. There was no stained-glass windows back then so the glass wasn't really transparent, especially after being mixed with ashes due to the fire.

The river was closer to the chapel at the time so archaeologists also found stone tools, flints, and pottery made by Ameridians by the site. Ameridians were nomadic groups.

The arch site was right below the current chapel (dates to 1771). The site was previously used as a storage place for the sisters and there was a "furnace"-kind of heating system built there to heat up the chapel above. The arch site was discovered when the sisters wanted to remove some earth/mud/sand from the mound to make more room for storage.

The arch dig of the first chapel has stopped but a new one (just a small one by the foundation of the chapel)would begin in Aug 2005. In sum, it's a pretty cool place to visit if you happen to visit Montreal.

And that was only the arch site. There's also the museum about the founder of the church, Marguerite Bourgeoys - a woman of action who came from France to set up schools in the new French colony. There were various display rooms that talk about her life, her contributions, the place at the time, & etc. It's really neat.

Another pic from the brochure that shows one of the display rooms where some artifacts were put in glass display cases on the floor.

The whole admission fee for the museum + the archaeological site costs $8 CAD. I think it's worth it. There's also the tower (the "Aerial")in the museum/chapel where visitors could get a good view of the Vieux Port and the Vieux Montreal.

Viewing of the Cirque du Soleli tents at the Vieux Port as I walk toward to the chaepl tower.

Many steep stairs going up! There was actually a sign that says - these are "antic" stairs so be gentle with it.

The tiny chapel - the "Aerial" or the "Tower". The "Aerial" is actually a tiny chapel were mariners came to pray for safe passage. I just love the color of this whole chapel. It's so comforting. No wonder sailors come here to pray for safe voyages.

Here's my paranomic pic (360 degrees.. well.. almost) of the view from the tower.

Starting from the door of the tower.

The Clock Tower in the Vieux Port is on the left of the pic. The distant circular-structure thing in the middle of the pic is the Biosphere on an Island.

The bridges and the Port.

One of the statues on the chapel.

To the other side , you can see another statue on the chapel with the Marche Bonsecours.

Back on to the streets of Vieux Montreal. Don't you just love the freshly colored leaves and the terraces? It's so poetic.. haha..

Walking along the stone-cobbled streets. It's close to noon time. I better make my way back to the metro station to catch my class at 1:30pm.

Passing by the old court by Place Vauquelin. It's the leaves that caught me again. They look so yummy.. Uhh..Tiffy..

The statue in Place Vauquelin - It represents a naval hero of the French regime - Jacques Vauquelin.

Walking back to the Champ-de-Mars metro station, I passed by Champ-de-Mars (Field of Mars) - a green space that was used as a parade square for local regiments 'til 1924. Archaeologists excavated the foundations of what was once the city's stone walls (Montreal was a fortified city but the walls were taken down b/c it was inconvenient for commerce).I stepped over the stone walls, suspecting they were the stone walls that I read about but didn't have time to double check so I didn't take a pic. I'll show you next time - since I still have to visit a few places around there anyway.