Montreal

After a late night it's a slow start this morning. But that's OK as our first organised activity is a walking tour of the old city and we are due to meet Amelie our guide at 10.15. The meeting point is in the square just outside the Notre Dame basilica, 50m from our front door.

We are part of a small group and Amelie, who grew up in a small town outside Montreal, can not only tell us about the city and its history but also about the social history of the place.

I have to keep reminding myself that I'm in Canada and not in France

It certainly feels very French, with its stone buildings and very human scale

At the end of the tour we head for the metro and take a train to Montmorency. The trains have rubber tyres rather than steel wheels, just like the Paris metro. We are meeting Sue and Pierre for lunch, and this is a part of our holiday we have been looking foreward to immensely. 

They are the owners of The Tapestry House, and we bought our Lebensbaum tapestry from them two years ago. They used to live in Oakville near Hamilton so Vera had her dad, Mike, go and check out the tapestry before we bought it and Pierre organised a zoom call for the occasion. It was the first time that Mike and I saw each other.

Needless to say the arrival of our tapestry did not go smoothly, being stuck in Stoney Creek post office for over a month due to Covid. But that was the beginning of what became a regular correspondence, and we began to feel that we all knew each other. So coming over to Canada, these were two people we really wanted to meet.

So here we are having a long lunch together. We chat for hours, telling our stories and putting the world to right. You don't get that with Amazon! 

Back on the metro to the city centre. Vera has been having technical problems with her phone - she cannot use her 15GB roaming data package and wants to go to the Apple Store to see if the can sort it out. I know, just what you want to do on holiday. She asks a random stranger at Montmorency station for directions to the store. This is a 30 minute train ride plus a walk, and I think this is a hopeless cause. But Karena escorts us to the nearest metro station to the store, changing trains on the way, and provides directions. Amazing

The shop cannot help, at least not today. They confirm that everything looks like it should work, but agree it doesn't. Something to sort out in Quebec City, and I think this could become a long running drama

I have booked tickets for Aura, a sound and light show in the Notre Dame basilica. Here is the scene in Place d' Armes as we wait for the doors to open. But the doors don't open, and the show has been cancelled due to technical problems.

So we wander through some of the streets that Amelie had shown us earlier, heading for a micro-brewery we had noticed.

We extensively sample their beer range

I also order Poutine. Canada doesn't seem to have a national dish, according to my local guide, but perhaps Poutine is the closest thing. Chips with curd cheese and gravy. It sounds a weird combination, but I can report it is actually pretty tasty. Vera, who had never tried it before, says it was OK but she would never order it. 

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