Best way to explore any city is to take the Hop-on-Hop-off Bus. The bus provides a tour of the city stopping at various locations while providing some history and interesting facts about the various neighborhoods and landmark buildings. For those of you who have visited Montreal, you’ll recognize the landmarks.

The bus starts at Square Dorchester Park a short walk from our hotel. A statue of Robert Burns is located in this park. The main statue is a memorial to those Canadiens who fought in the South African Second Boer War (1899-1902). Red flowers circle the memorial as do tables and chairs with umbrellas.

The tour bus leaves at 10:15 am and we are captive until the end with only one area where we hopped off. So what did we see? Here are the photos of our tour. Can you tell which is the Batman Building? We toured through the ‘Old City’ and along the port, ‘The Village’ area where the LGBTQ+ mostly live, Plazas, the longest street – Sherbrooke – stopping at the Museum of Fine Arts, passing the St. Joseph’s Cemetery (1850 until today – largest cemetery in Canada) and a sample house from 1823, the Park on Mont Royal. A manageable city with lots to see and do.

At the top of Mont Royal, we hop off in the park near a pond and the path to the Chalet of Mont Royal where there is an observation deck. It is quite warm today even for Florida people! The view of the city is great from this point. After spending a little time here, we walk to the large steel cross planted on the same spot where the first wooden cross was planted by Paul de Chomedey, the founder of Montreal in 1643. The Modern Cross was erected in 1924 by the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste. Photos from Mont Royal below.

After the stop at the cross, we find the stairs to walk down to the parking lot where we meet the hop-on-hop-off bus again to take us back to Square Dorchester.

A couple hours in the hotel to cool off and we are back out for dinner at a wonderful restaurant in the Old City – Les Pyrenees. I enjoyed the Cassoulet – Delicious food!

Our final adventure for the day is a light show in the Notre Dame Basilica called “The Aura.” You can take pictures before and after the show but not during. The church goes completely dark and then starts. Think Magic Kingdom Castle light show with organ music. Truly something to see. The intricacies of the inside of the basilica are highlighted showing off various scenes and statues throughout the gothic-style architecture; you probably would not even notice some of these features during the daylight. Thumbs up to this show!

Everyone is looking forward to spending the final day of the trip in Montreal. Lots more to see and do!