Steppingout

It’s always a challenge to think of how to show off Montreal to first-time visitors who have a short amount of time. I think it’s a rather opaque city, neither beautiful nor grand, but more like a Russian doll with carefully painted features on different layers, most charming when you see the details. We also always want to show visitors the city in a way that will suit them.  Our guests this past weekend were Europeans who love food, wine, and cooking so our first stop was the Jean-Talon market, where we shopped for Sunday dinner. That first introduction was a good choice — they loved it. On the terrace back at home, we unwrapped cheeses, set out bowls of olives, uncorked wine they had brought, started a simple supper together and sat down to enjoy it together and catch up on the past five years.

The next day we walked in the neighborhood, took a driving tour that took us over Pont Jacques-Cartier to Parc Jean Drapeau and the site of Expo, over the Concorde bridge to the roiling point where harbor and rushing river meet; then through downtown and Westmount, and up the back side of the mountain to Beaver Lake and the belvedere overlooking the city. On our way down, we stopped at the other overlook, where three or four white stretch limousines were waiting for groups of teenagers in gowns and tuxedos: it was, apparently, prom night, and they were up there taking pictures of each other — an opportunity too good for a blogger to pass up.

Promnight

Out for dinner at a French bistro in the Plateau that evening. In the morning – St. Jean-Baptiste Day – three of us went to the big traditional Catholic mass celebrated by Cardinal Turcotte at Eglise St.-Jean-Baptiste, preceded by an organ concert of works by Canadian composers; the one former Catholic among us politely declines and stayed home reading in the garden of her B&B. Then we all gathered one last time for lunch – a sort of Nicoise salad I concocted from the remains of our market trip and whatever we had in the refrigerator, and said our goodbyes.

Nicoise

I’d been looking forward to this visit for several months and the time flew by;
now they’re gone and I’m missing them with that curious ache of
happiness mixed with melancholy, knowing it may be a long time until
the next time we’re together, but feeling like there’s still a lot of their love and warmth in our house, and hoping ours is traveling home with them.