We enjoyed breakfast outside at our campground by the St. Lawrence River before heading out to Quebec City. We tried to find a propane filling station but were unsuccessful as one closed at 11am and the other didn’t fill automobile tanks.

We found a great parking lot near the abandoned market hall by the marina and walked through the lower part of the city visiting shops and galleries. The city was alive with tourists, colourful decorations, music, and even a costumed interpreter.

Ruth especially like the Swedish embroidery at a crafts cooperative and Martin liked an arts exhibit entitled “Eternal Snow” featuring the bust of Louis XIV trapped in an eternal snowstorm in a snow globe as a reminder of the rigours of Quebec winters.

We then walked up to the upper city towards the Chateau Frontenac where street performers showed their skills and we had lunch at Starbucks with some of Ruth’s gift cards.

On our way out of Quebec City we finally found a place that could fill our propane tank which was getting a little low. Montreal was calling so we took highway 20 without any further sightseeing. We arrived in Longueuil just across the river from Montreal where there is a campground at the marina with a nearby river shuttle to Old Montreal.

The river shuttle runs every hour and takes about 30 minutes with one stop at Jean Drapeau Park. Montreal was full of festivals. An Oriental festival was the first we found, right at the port with music, food, crafts and clothing from various countries. We walked through Old Montreal and up St. Laurent Blvd to Schwartz’s to have an early smoked meat dinner. The line outside wasn’t too long but the small restaurant was buzzing inside.

On our way back, we stopped at a design and fashion festival at Place Des Arts and enjoyed all the displays and activities including a dance competition, fashion show and a performance by a great drummer.

Dead tired we took the shuttle back to our campground and enjoyed the Montreal skyline by night.

It was an early morning and we took the first shuttle to Montreal to have a second breakfast with our friend Jean of Camtec Photo. He suggested we visit the Jean Talon Farmer’s Market and a short Metro (subway) ride later we were there. The market is huge and has everything from seafood to vegetables to apples and berries. Corn is in season and we each enjoyed two corn on the cobs followed by a couple of cheese curds. A big basket of wild blueberries had to come as well and will provide us with vitamins and anti-oxidants for the next couple of days.

We took the Metro back to Place Des Arts where we returned to the design and fashion show to see a truly amazing dance performance featuring 12 dancers. Lots of “don’t try this at home” stuff.

While we had a short rest in some bean bag seats, an all black group of models put on a flash mob performance.

Tired and hungry we had an early dinner at St. Hubert. The chicken dinners are way bigger than those of Swiss Chalet and the half chicken portions we ordered were pretty filling. Outside, two people where playing chess with pieces the size of small children on a huge board in the pedestrian zone.

We had a comfortable lazy morning before taking the river shuttle back to Montreal. We had planned to see a number of museums but ran into a historic skills, trade, food and drink festival right in Old Montreal. Here we saw blacksmiths and wood turners demonstrating their crafts, various traditional foods and drinks to try, and for young people snowshoe racing. If you were so inclined you could get a short lesson on swordsmanship and then try fencing.

There was not much time to visit many museums so we picked an exhibition by Yoko Ono at the Foundation Phi pour l’art contemporain, a fabulous gallery that offers free admission to all their exhibitions. Yoko Ono’s exhibition was interactive and many pieces dealt with abuse and family.

A video showed a performance of her sitting motionless on the stage and having members of the audience cut pieces of clothing off her body. It was entitled Cut Piece and gave the impression of a victim being abused.

It was too late to visit another gallery so we went for an early dinner and then headed back to our campground on the river shuttle and enjoyed the beautiful evening light.

We again left for Montreal after a long morning and visited the Bank of Montreal Museum where we learned of Canada’s first bank, its founders and history. The bank was founded by nine Montreal businessmen in 1817. The bank rapidly expanded to various other cities and had interests in the US, particularly New York and Chicago.

The Bank of Montreal was also instrumental in unifying Canada’s currency and printed the bank notes for some time.

Since it was a hot day we thought a cool movie would be refreshing and fun. The Science Center has an IMAX theatre and here we saw a 3D movie entitled Super Dogs on the extraordinary skills and talents of dogs used for search and rescue and therapy. Too bad our super dog, Pepsi, couldn’t join us.

After the movie we strolled through Montreal a while and took the shuttle back to our campground.