Happy Birthday, St Jean Baptiste!! This is the #1 holiday of the year for Quebecois. Not Canadians, mind you - the Quebecois always got to be doing their own thing. It turns out that Montreal, with only 3 months of summer a year, PARTIES HARD, and has more festivals then any other city, per population. We happened to arrive in time for the 36th International Fireworks Competition, the International Lions Convention, and the World Triathlon. Oh joy - I do love a Big Party Crowd.
I'm in charge of activities on land, and boy did I have some. Biking was the first thing up - I wanted to see Habitat 57 - I can always count on Atlas Obscura to give me some funky ideas. This one was much better then the World's Tallest Filing Cabinet in Burlington VT, which I don't think Rick has ever recovered from.
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While this was once seen as a cool way to give the middle class an affordable way to live, it is now the most expensive real estate in Montreal. It is on a peninsula and has water views on both sides. Plus all the roofs have gardens, which I think should be mandatory.
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Rick gets a rest between stops - I'm not a slave driver, after all!
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Next up, The Biosphere. The Canadian pavilion for the 1967 Expo - designed by Buckminster Fuller, the inventor of the geodesic dome.
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And why not, just as good a destination as any!
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Then, the serendipity that sometimes comes from just going with the flow. We got to ride on the Formula One Track!! Fortunately the actual race happened last week, so we didn't have to go 200 MPH to keep up.
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We had ridden across the water and many miles - it was time to turn around. Montreal's streets are often under construction during the summer, so people turn to bikes, and it has developed into a great biking city, with hundreds of miles of paths.
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See if you can zoom in and find Blue Horizon - she is on dock just in sight on the very left.
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Right now those bike paths needed to lead us to food, as even Rick was starting to act hangrey!.. We found one of the main marches, markets - Marche Atwater. It's a crazy combination of farmers market and food court. It's hard to be sensible when one is so hungry-we wanted to buy/eat ALL THE THINGS!
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The Paradise of Cheese!! And the biggest display of tubular meats we've ever seen. We have SO MUCH FOOD on board, so I had to slap Rick's hand when he reached for his wallet.
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We are so French now we travel with baguette!
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All over the city there were detours and crowds of either runners or bikers zooming by - the World Triathlon. It is a 4-day event, with different ages groups, heats, etc. We saw some FIERCE older women tearing it up on bikes... It inspired me to go home ... and take a nap.
By 5pm we were exhausted by the crowds, activities and sun and happy to get home, turn on the AC and make the boat a dark, cool cave. Don't think it was quiet, though - it wasn't. It was a cacophony of competing music, from the Cirque tent, to the bars around the basin to the loud party music on all the boats. But the energy was fun, and we were content to watch the sun go down and the lights come on from the marina. We only ventured out for glace (ice cream) once it was dark....
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