Tuesday, 12 September. Again we all gathered after breakfast and took the Metro to Old Montreal. The weather was cool and misty, so we were hoping to find something to do indoors. We wound up at the Marche Bonsecours (1852), a long, silver-domed brick building on the waterfront. It was built as the city hall, then was converted to a central market. It's now used for exhibitions and also houses dozens of small shops. We spent close to two hours browsing the shops.

Afterward, we examined the menus of several restaurants along Rue St. Paul before deciding to have lunch at the Pub St. Paul (by coincidence, no doubt, another participant in Visa's two-for-one promotion). It was one flight up, a large beer hall more in the German tradition than the French. Despite its size, it was nearly empty. The food was good, as was the beer.

When we finished, even though there was a light drizzle, Jane and I decided to take the Metro to Ile Ste. Helene to visit the Stewart Museum. That's something we hadn't done on our previous visit. Don and Terry came with us. The others went to see the casino on Ile Notre Dame.

Old Fort

The Stewart Museum, housed in the Old Fort, turned out to be much farther from the Metro stop than we expected, so we had a long walk in the rain. There were parking places closer than the Metro stop, so we could have taken the car. When we got to Old Fort, there was no sign of life. The ticket booth was deserted. We wandered around the old fortifications until we finally stumbled on an almost "secret" entrance to the museum. Once inside, it was very interesting, not to mention warm and dry.

The displays chronicled Canada's history from the 15th through the 19th centuries, mostly with various objects once used by the residents. The collection included fire arms and uniforms; documents and maps; household items; and "scientific" instruments of the day (navigation, astronomy, surveying, medicine, etc.). Heading back through the drizzle, we took the Metro back to Sherbrooke and the hotel.

That evening we all gathered again and walked in the rain to Rue St. Denis. We had dinner at Le Creperie. Afterwards we were glad to get back to the hotel and out of the weather. We started packing for our departure in the morning.

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