Boston's North End and a bit on MIT...

This morning we took our trolley bus over to North End to seek out Paul Revere's house. This seemingly simple goal took us well over one hour, and given that by then we still had not located it we decided to grab an early lunch in Little Italy. When we stopped to consult one of our many useless maps, we were hustled by a Tibetan monk in orange robes wearing sneakers and a dirty beige sunhat. I've been hustled by many people over the years, but never anyone purporting to be Buddhist, so this came as a disappointment to me.

Soon after entering Little Italy's main eat-street, North Street, we were attracted to a high quality 'hole in the wall' sandwich bar that was down a long 900mm narrow laneway and around a corner. Extraordinary food, with moist salami and huge vats of giant bocconcini, and octopus and stuffed peppers swimming in olive oil. But nowhere decent to sit, other than an outdoor patio in the burning sun, so that's where we had to go. Luckily we only ordered two 'sandwiches' between us, as it turned out they were 12 inch long baguettes. We sat there, eating our delicious lunch, while the skin on our shoulders sizzled. There was nothing we could do. All the sunblock in the world could only take the edge off it.

Next we resumed our search for Paul Revere's House, and did circles of a few blocks, before it dawned on us where it might be. Just as I was about to turn back and give up on the street I thought was absolutely it, Laurie encouraged me to go up a bit further. Hey presto! It was just around the bend. Paul Revere was associated with the sons of liberty and is the hero of the American Revolution.  The house he lived his life in, with his two concurrent wives and 16 children, was built in 1680 and is the oldest surviving house in Boston Central, and the only example of 17th century domestic architecture in the city. I found it profoundly interesting. It's been carefully presented since 1908 as a partly preserved and partly restored showcase of life in the years soon after it's creation. Every room has (at least) four walls and they all go off at irregular angles, and the floors creak and heave like an old tub at sea.  I really liked it.

Out in the side yard again, just when my loved ones thought we were good to go, I announced the great news: Another heritage house just next door... Boston's oldest surviving brick home, built 1711, the Pierce/Hichborn House.  I expressed an interest and they sent the curator straight over to give us a private guided tour for $2 each. It was really good, and I must write and thank Eileen.

Thereafter we returned to explore some backstreets full of Italian foodie places, hoping to locate a pastry shop that made decent cannoli's. We found Bova's Bakery, a huge corner pastry store that had function sized quantities of dozens and dozens of different types of sweet pastries. If they really move that much stock each day, they simply must be wholesalers to the hospitality industry. To devour our cannoli from a seated position, we walked up to the park that sits over the underground expressways. This whole grassed and treed area, with its walkways and shallow water features is hailed as a great urban success story for the city and its liveability. It's reduced air and noise pollution dramatically, given city workers a healthy environment to take breaks in, and cleared traffic congestion completely.

Then, we went underground to get a train. After taking a wrong changeover we had to backtrack a bit, but eventually we made our way to Kendall Station where we thought we'd find MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). Upon arrival, we bought a horribly diluted iced coffee (that's the only type they know how to make here) and then promptly marched off in the wrong direction, found nothing at all, so decided it was far too hard, and that Harvard was more important. If only these places had street signage for newcomers!

Just as we got back to the Station, I realised I could see a whole lot of people buzzing about further up another long street. I strong armed my loved ones into traipsing up there, on the promise we'd just peek around only one place. That turned out to be the MIT Press Bookstore. Oh my Lord! This bookstore was ugly as sin from the outside, but an absolute treasure box inside. I had to buy two little books. How could I not? Their architectural and urban studies sections were sizeable. In fact, that's all I could see, so I was extremely happy.

We then returned to the 'outward bound' station entry, and continued on to Harvard. More on that later...

Out and about around Montreal

Two solid days worth of sightseeing has passed since I last wrote, so we've covered a bit of ground.

We bought a three day public transport pass yesterday morning, as we're going a little further afield on these last three full days here, and its great value at 18$ each for as much travel as you want on the subway or the bus. Both mornings we've enjoyed coming and going from our local Metro, Square Victoria. We live (!) in a very civilised (without being snobby) part of town, and have a gorgeous opera singer who busks in the long tunnel that stretches from our glass entry box on one side of Square Victoria to the actual subway on the other side of the park. Setting off at 9ish yesterday, we were moving completely against the throng of Montreallers coming to work in Vieux-Montreal, so we formed a single line against the wall on the far right of the tunnel, and watched the rows of faces, six or seven across, flowing past us. It was powerful visually, and the human barrage went on for rather a while.

We eventually came up for air at 'Peel' Station, but the wind on the street was chilly, so we decided to walk underground to where we needed to go, through the labyrinth shopping malls. In so doing we discovered what I'd suspected, which is that retail shops and many food outlets in Montreal do not open for trade until 10am. We spent a few hours exploring the beautiful Musee des Beaux Arts on Rue Sherbrooke. I got in gratis as a journalist, so look forward to writing an article on the place. This is a very opulent part of the city, and we greatly enjoyed the gallery. After we'd viewed as much art as our brains could process, we walked back toward the main part of the city, and checked out McGill University. It's a lovely campus.

We were out and about for six hours, as we find that's a sufficient amount of time. We rose terribly early yesterday. From 4am Laurie and I were both reluctantly awake, unable to get back to sleep, so we got up, researched things and pottered about. It is disorientating, but given we actually managed seven consecutive hours of sleep last night and awoke at the eminently more acceptable time of 6.45am, I think we're on the way towards normality again now.

Last night, we had the extraordinary treat of seeing Cirque du Soleil's latest show 'Luzia' in Le Grand Chapiteau down on the wharf in front of Place Jacques Cartier. It was so special to see them perform in their home city, with their home crowd. It was all in French, but that didn't detract too much from our understanding. It's the fourth show of theirs we've seen, and J's second. While we did enjoy it, it was not the best one, in our opinion. The second act was much stronger than the first though, and I cam out buzzing, despite my hub's lacklustre response. For our twelve year old, however, it was fantastic. We strolled home along the waterfront where all the heritage buildings were lit up various colours. It was a memorable experience, despite how weary we were. 

This morning we set off at 9.30am and took the subway straight up to Little Italy to see Jean-Talon Market. This is an earthy, multicultural, working class neighbourhood which comes up on Google as District de Saint-Edouard. The row terraces are distinctive due to their excess of external staircases, mostly in metal, and the iron work on their balconies is relatively ornate. Must be awfully icy and slippery most of the year. The whole area has heaps of character and our daughter, in particular, really liked it.

The Jean-Talon Markets are very close to the station - Just follow the flurry of people. As soon as we got there we saw the most alluring oyster bar, where you can buy one oyster at a time, of your choice, a la carte, to have natural or with the addition of red or green tabasco sauce, or herb or garlic oil. We had one each to start with, and then tore ourselves away, mainly because I felt like it was an odd thing to have at 10am. But they were so delicious, like silk that melted in our mouths. We loved them so much that we came back not just once, but twice. They were pure and clean, which may have something to do with the water, given the North Pole is not that far away... Seriously sublime.

      This is a great market. We had a lovely time, admiring all the meat outlets and chacuteries, tasting the samples of raspberries, mangoes, pink grapefruit, orange, plums, cherries, pineapple, good cheeses, tomatoes, both red and yellow; the most delicious we've ever tasted, and even crunchy baby radishes. The fresh flower and herb market is equivalent in size to the food section, so it's a lovely combination.  If we lived here, we would go at least fortnightly. We all left on an oyster high, delighted by what we'd tasted. 

Back on the subway, we decided to head straight off to explore Le Village, a part of Montreal that stretches between three Metro stations: from Berri-Uquam to Papineau, with Beaudry in the middle. This is the heart of the Gay and LBTIAQ community and the entire eight blocks along Rue St Catherine are decorated with pink borbels hanging across the street. There's eateries all the way along, with dining pergolas spilling onto the street, so it seems mostly traffic free. Some of the pergolas are decorated with flowers or pink paint. Our daughter wanted to know the significance of all the flags, so we explained them to her, in brief.

We stopped at one of the diners, run by some girls, for a late lunch of clam chowder and poutine (a Quebec favourite, involving crispy fried potato chips with a gravy and slightly gooey lumps of cheese). We quite liked both dishes, as something different to our norm. After that, we stopped in at SAQ, the main liquor chain here, and chose a bottle of Pinot Noir from all the unfamiliar brands. Having purchased various delicious items from the market, we thought a nice red was in order for this evening.

We then briefly considered going to the Musee d'Art Contemporaire, but thought it too hard. We went all the way there yesterday, and did more than a 360 of the whole outside but could not see anything remotely resembling an entrance. We did find the staff entrance, but the signage shooed us away. I Googled it last night, and found that it has been hemmed in by the Grand Prix shenanigans that are going on all over this city. If it was a stand-out gallery we would have made the extra effort to go back this second time, but all the reviews I've read have it as lower end of average, so... we walked back to the Metro through a public herb garden, run by the local community. It was lovely to see planter boxes of basel everywhere, and pallets used creatively as seating and everything under the sun.

We came home, wrote, read, grazed on market fare, and went up on our rooftop for a glass of vino rouge before bed. Even though it's only 9ish, it feels like 2am to us. So much walking, so little sleep and so many new considerations have made us weary. All wonderful though! We're thrilled we've managed to visit this lovely city, at long last. It's a great privilege.