French Canada Road Trip: Day Five, Part Two (Montreal Botanical Gardens)

For Day Five, Part One: Old City Montreal, click here.

I'll start by saying that if you're not going to Montreal in late fall, you're definitely missing out. The entire region of eastern Canada, where most of the country's population lies, experiences peak fall color between mid-October and early November. I managed to catch Montreal at its peak time, and the colors blazed even on the greyer days I spent in Quebec.

Fiery leaves show no sign of fading in the grey morning outside the Montreal Botanical Garden.

Today started out looking like it would be just that: a grey, rainy day. I'd taken my car across town to visit the Montreal Botanical Gardens. This 190-acre park first opened in 1931, and is nestled in the ethnically-diverse borough of Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie. Nowadays, the gardens face Montreal's aging Olympic Stadium, which can be seen from anywhere in the eastern half of the garden.

My self-guided tour started inside the main greenhouse, which is original to the property. The park charges a modest fee for admission, but residents can obtain a pass allowing for free access at any time. This makes sense, as the botanical gardens are nestled among two other large parks, and make for a relaxing departure from city life. Inside the greenhouse, plants from around the world are housed in separate rooms and allowed to sprawl freely. In several spots, I found myself ducking under vibrant purple ivy-lined limbs and zig-zagging through giant fern fronds.

Touring the greenhouse didn't take long, and when I got back outside, I was greeted by the clearest sky I'd seen since arriving in Canada. I followed a tree-lined path towards the rose garden and found myself stopping every few feet to snap pictures of the surreal display of oranges, reds, and yellows.

The rose garden was out of season, but a gardener still picked blades of grass and leaves from the plots. These acres of gardens are manicured by a large and largely unseen army of workers, and it shows. Never have I been somewhere that felt at once so vast and meticulously maintained.

I decided to walk over to the Chinese garden next. Dozens of lanterns marked the way to a garden lush with flowers and turquoise water. Built in 1990, the garden features two Chinese buildings, one of which was being refurbished, but the larger of the two was open, and had an artfully detailed ceiling with a magnificent lantern hanging in the center. Outside of the larger building, and surrounded by a wall resembling a Chinese dragon, was a fully-stocked bonsai display. Construction of the Chinese garden was led by 50 artisans from the Shanghai Institute of Landscape Design and Architecture, and took a year to complete.

Moving on, I decided the Japanese garden would be a logical next step. Plus it was only a short walk away. I moved on a winding path through the park as was intended by the designers. It's a place where you keep track of time not by a watch or cell phone, but by watching the shadows grow longer as the day goes on. Ken Nakajima, a landscape architect responsible for gardens in Russia, Australia, and Houston, Texas, designed the Japanese garden, which was built in 1988. Staples of this garden include the Japanese-style house, with a zen-inspired interior and central rock garden. There's also a koi pond behind the house, and a tea ceremony performed regularly during the summer.

Winding through the Japanese garden, I took a sharp corner onto a heavily-wooded pathway. This one led to the First Nations garden, which opened in 2001 as tribute to the indigenous cultures of Canada. It felt a lot like walking through the woods in north Georgia, as tall pines, maples, and birches create a dense forest in the middle of the park. Here there are totem poles and an exhibition area for performers and other volunteers who explain the many medicinal plants from the time period. The narrow path took sharp turns, and I was surprised by how accurately it replicated my fear of getting lost on some loosely-marked trails back home.

Thankfully the wooded path soon led uphill to the Alpine garden. This garden was one of my favorites, because it reminded me of my grandparent's mountain home in Bailey, Colorado. It recreates several familiar rocky outcrops with alpine plants native to certain high-elevation spots on earth.

By this point, it was well into the afternoon, and past time for lunch. I found the main path, flanked by mixed gardens and lined with tall, colorful trees. It led to the Restaurant Jardin Botanique, which served tasty soups and sandwiches while entertaining me with an eclectic soundtrack; .38 Special's "Caught up in you" played as I sipped coffee from a tiny mug and watched people sitting outside on the patio.

The garden is a great place to escape the buzz of downtown Montreal, and as I walked to the exit on the western end of the park, I pretended I was a Quebecois going for a walk through his magnificent city. 1600 miles away from home, I felt a distinct disconnect from the America I knew; from the election noise and cheap entertainment and work nonsense. Outside the gates, a group of four kids about middle-school age laughed as they sat in the grass, not worried about the uniforms they'd worn to school clean that morning. It must be nice to grow up here, I thought as I headed back to the hostel.

Next, I head to Downtown Montreal and Mount Royal Park. Check out Part Three here.

French Canada Road Trip: Day Five, Part One (Old City Montreal)

To brush up on Day Four, a whirlwind trip from Toronto to Ottawa and along the St. Lawrence to Montreal, click here.

My hostel was located in the middle of Old Montreal. The city of Montreal is actually an island, with Mount Royal's 500-foot peak serving as the centerpoint and namesake of the city. Montreal was established in the early 1600s, first in 1611 as a fur trading post, then officially as the French colony of Ville Marie in 1641.

Old Montreal, one of the oldest population centers in North America, is situated along the Saint Lawrence River, and about 4,000 people live in this quarter-mile stretch of cobblestone streets. In the morning, I began on the North end of the neighborhood, planning to criss-cross through the narrow streets as the morning went on.

One of my first sights was Marche Bonsecours, a shopping center across the street from the hostel. It was clear from that point (and from driving in the night before) that most of Montreal is perpetually under construction, more so than any city I'd visit on this trip.

From there, I headed up a couple of blocks to the Hotel de ville de Montreal, which now houses Montreal City Hall, and has historically been home to the mayor of the city. Across the street from this, Chateau Ramezay, an 18th-century home that's housed Canadian governors, the Continental Army, a University of Montreal building, and now is a museum.

You get a good sense of the cosmopolitan nature of Montreal as soon as you set foot on its sidewalks. The streets of Vieux-Montreal are lined with renowned restaurants, and at night you can peek into basement dining rooms and hear American music spilling out across the streets.

By law, the province of Quebec is bilingual; all official documents, court proceedings, and other government business are transcribed in both French and English. In the streets of Montreal, you hear French almost exclusively from passers-by, with the exception of the area around McGill, an English-speaking research University on the west end of the island.

My walk continued past Place Jacques Cartier, a normally-bustling square which features Nelson's Column as its centerpiece. With a quick glance, you might miss this monument's significance, and its innate controversy. The column, built in 1809 after the death of British Royal Navy officer Horatio Nelson, commemorates Britain's victory over France in the Battle of Trafalgar, in which Nelson lost his life.

Unsurprisingly, in a city that's 90% French-speaking, this statue did not and continues not to go over well, especially with Quebecois sovereignists, who plotted to blow up the statue shortly after it was built. In 1930, during a public inquiry, locals dedicated the square across the street to French naval officer Jean Vauquelin, and in 1997 an unsuccessful appeal was brought to move the statue to an English-speaking neighborhood.

Further south on Rue Notre-Dam sits the Notre-Dame Basilica of Montreal. This massive Gothic church, constructed in 1853, takes up almost two blocks and demands to be seen. Thankfully, this is made easy by Place d'Armes, a largely-open square across the street with a statue of Paul de Chomedy de Maisonneuve, founder of Montreal in New France.

Notre-Dame's parish on the island of Montreal traces roots back to 1657, and more recently the church has been host to events such as Celine Dion's marriage to René Angélil (and his memorial service in January 2016), Justin Trudeau's eulogy to his father (and that funeral service in 2000), and Pope John Paul II's visit, raising the church to basilica status in 1982.

Unfortunately, I didn't get to tour the inside of the basilica, but it features a 7000-pipe organ dating back to 1891, and the stained glass windows rather unusually display scenes from Montreal's history. More on that fascinating organ though; most organs are rated by stops. These stops control individual ranks (vertical groups based on timbre and pitch) of pipes; the bigger the church, the more pipes, and the more stops. According to the Associated Pipe Organ Builders of America (yes, a real thing), the size of the pipe organ in a church should be determined by the number of congregants, and the size is determined by stops. 5-10 stops per 100 people is a good rule of thumb. The amount of stops in Notre-Dame's pipe organ? 88

To further put this into perspective, think of the maintenance involved. Pipe organs need to be tuned twice a year, generally with the change from warm to cold season and vice-versa. APOBA says the cost of tuning varies from $85 to $125 an hour. Now, take into consideration that it takes an hour to tune each stop.

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As I neared the edge of the Old City, I turned onto Rue Saint-Pierre. On this street, housed in a former fire station, the Montreal History Center set up a giant inflatable octopus, presumably for Halloween. Standing across the street is Maison de Mere d'Youville, a stacked stone 1693 building that housed the old General Hospital and Saint Marguerite d'Youville, who founded The Grey Nuns of Montreal.

Still walking along Rue Saint-Pierre, I headed towards the water. On the corner, a monument to John Young, who was responsible for enlarging and developing the port of Montreal in the late 19th century. It sits in front of the Allan Building, a structure which holds an interesting piece of historical significance.

The H & A Allen Company, a shipbuilding outfit founded in 1863, was headquartered here when one of its steamships, the Virginian, first sent its wire of having received the first distress signal from the Titanic. This Montreal office was where the crew of the Virginian asked for permission to alter their course and rescue survivors of the shipwreck.

While I was there, a group of protestors played metal and held signs in opposition of Trudeau. They effectively drew attention; it was about 9:30 in the morning and the music was blaring. I still heard it as I walked towards the port, where a massive orange ship was docked.

Across the water, I saw Habitat 67. This fascinating piece of Montreal architecture was designed as an experimental utopia to be displayed at the 1967 Expo. It's one of only two remaining structures from that Exposition, the other being the Biodome. At its core, Habitat 67 is a set of prefabricated concrete cubes set together in an organic fashion. The idea was to create a style of apartment living that defied the conventional high rise, instead creating individual spaces that were more like single-family homes, in that they had gardens and streets running throughout.

But the idealistic project soon ran into trouble. During construction, the budget ran out of control, leading the government to set rents artificially high for the building. Further, the concrete cubes needed frequent repair, and made the spaces more prone to mold. Now the building houses fully-renovated spaces and a strong sense of community, but its edgy ideals have fled even the man-made peninsula on which it was built.

Next, I head to the Montreal Botanical Garden. Find Part Two here.