Treating myself to an outing

Poem at Ottawa's railway station

Train journeys really appeal to me, and to other people it seems, as witnessed by the poem that's displayed these days in the ViaRail station on Tremblay Road, Ottawa. A translation into English is displayed too, on the other side of the entrance, but it's not as good as the original.

My husband being in Vienna, I took myself off to Montreal this morning, just to wander about in the streets and shops and enjoy myself. I didn't go on the metro but once out of the Gare Centrale I walked everywhere, without needing a map. I had lunch in the Vieux Montreal crêperie (Café Muru Crêpe) that I remembered from a few years back, and my "Crêpe d'Accord"there with a café au lait came up to expectations in all respects.

Then I lingered in the Marché Bonsecours with its attractive boutiques, walked through the Vieux Port and Chinatown, then past the Place des Arts and so back to the city centre in the vicinity of McGill University, shopping (or "just looking," mostly) in a perfunctory sort of way. I'm not the world's most avid shopper and my feet and legs got too weary for me to consider visiting a museum as well; anyhow I was quite happy without that, today. The weather had cleared up by lunchtime.

Shades of Paris in the "Square Victoria"

View down rue Bonsecours (after lunch)

Place des Arts, Montreal

The former concourse of Windsor Station

Before getting back to the station I made another detour to take a look at the old Gare Windsor that came into service in 1889 but is a station no longer. It is an imposing building on the outside, nicely preserved inside, and seems to be haunted by the shades of early 20th century immigrants moving westwards in droves, or of Canadian sailors, soldiers or airmen moving to and from the great World Wars through that former ticket office and concourse. It was deserted this afternoon except for a few early home bound commuters taking a short cut through there to reach the metro at Bonaventure.

The train ride home took me towards the sunset all the way that I could appreciate from my window seat.

Speeding home across the Ottawa River, west of Montreal