Le Jardin Botanique and Parc Mont Royal

The B&B was situated close to three of Montreal's best-known parks - Parc LaFontaine, Parc Mont-Royal, and Le Jardin Botanique. My hostess had told me "you must visit the Botanical Gardens" and so on my first day in the city, I did. I spent most of my time in the Chinese and Japanese gardens, though I also walked through a restored native forest, with exhibits of First Nations camps. This area was shady and cooler than the more open pathways. After a couple of hours walking around I began to feel sunburned, and stopped in to the gift shop to buy a scarf to protect my shoulders, neck and face.


The Japanese tea house housed a very somber memorial for the 60th anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Survivors' narratives were posted next to child-like drawings and paintings of remembered scenes, touching because any still-living people who survived the bombing would have been children at the time.

In another room were some gorgeous scenic photos from rural Japan and seaside or mountain villages, very colorful and tranquil, and different from my limited knowledge and imagination of Japanese life.

The Chinese garden

Where bananas come from -
these were only about 4" long

Gingko leaves and nuts

Gingkos are an ancient and fascinating species of tree, though I think technically they aren't really even a tree, they are so unique. Most of what I know I get from wikipedia, so I suggest anyone interested go do a Google search. But I will say that gingkos thrive in disturbed ground, and in Hiroshima and Nagasaki some trees that survived went through growth spurts after the bombing, sending out new roots, shoots and branches, blooming and producing lots of fruit. Gingkos are a symbol of life, recovery and resilience.







A panorama of Montreal from le Chalet du Mont Royal
 

I quickly discovered relief from the city heat and humidity at the cool and breezy top of Mont Royal. The mountain is really only about the size of some of the hills that US west coast cities like Seattle and Bellingham are built on. According to the natural history exhibits at Maison Smith in the park, the mountain is the remains of a pre-ice age volcano; glaciers formed and receded, stripping away thousands of feet of top soil and leaving an outcrop of black marble that was used in construction of many of the city's early buildings.

The park and path are an Olmstead design, and were meant to be left simple and natural as much as possible, but Montreal city leaders couldn't leave things in their wild state. They built a stone chalet and observation plaza, which are rustic but impressive enough to use for royal receptions.

Chalet du Mont-Royal

The hard-packed gravel pedestrian-bicycle path is wider than many city streets. It's a fairly gradual uphill all the way, with a couple of steeper switch-backs, and enough foot-traffic that you can't cut loose and go fast on the downhill trip. Some people ride Bixi bikes to the top, and I did it easily on my Surly. From my B&B it was only about 3.5 miles to the top, but I did manage to get a little lost. There is a curving path up to the Chalet, then a loop around the peak of the mountain, but the first day I visited there was - guess what! - construction work in progress near Maison Smith, with big trucks, bulldozers and orange netting obscuring the turn-off to the loop. I rode up the hill, wandered around the cemetery and a small pond, the Lac aux Castors, and then, without realizing it, got on the loop around the summit, riding around at least three times before I finally stopped in at the Chalet to find a tourist map that would point out the turn-off to get back down the hill.

Monument in Mont-Royal Cemetery

Cross of St. Joseph