Montreal & Fuji X100V
Montreal & FujiFilm X100V
We’re the kind of campers who obsessively check the weather leading up to the weekends and then making last-minute decisions of whether to stay home or go anyway. We might be fair-weather campers, but that’s mainly because when we camp, we like being outside most of the time—not stuck inside the van. Sure, we’ve sought van refuge during storms and cold temps, but more often than not, we’d just as soon make other plans if we don’t think the weather will support long days outside. Such was the case this past weekend. New England was going to experience what forecasters call an “unsettled” weather pattern—which basically means Mother Nature will do whatever the hell she wants. This past weekend, that meant sun and temps in the 90s Thursday and Friday and then a drop to the 50s with showers likely Saturday/Sunday. Maybe a severe T-storm. Maybe just clouds. Whatever the case, we decided to escape the pattern and head north—to Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Montreal is just four hours from home, yet G and I had never been there together. In our 25 years together, we’d both been to Montreal but separately, each of us having traveled there for work-related trips. So when G—more of a planner and less a spontaneous kind of guy—suggested we head to Montreal, we thought the change of scenery and a chance to explore a new city together would be fun. We only had a day and a half to explore, but we certainly made the most of our time, tallying more than 29,000 steps in those 36 hours! We didn’t see everything—not even close—but we spent the time taking in as much as we could by walking through Old Montreal, then up to Sainte Catherine Street and through the gorgeous campus of McGill University. I had done tours of churches on a prior trip, and G decided we’d leave visiting those for another trip, so instead, we just walked the city—and walked and walked.
I took my camera and sketchbook as well as a few film cameras that have rolls I still need to finish (which I didn’t!), but I ended up not taking many photos or making much art. I did enough of each to be happy, but the weekend ended up being more about just being—being in the world, being among people, just being out. And it was wonderful.
I have a couple of posts lined up after this one, so I’ll keep this one focused on a few shots from our walks around the city—I’m a sucker for cool doors and windows so I snapped a few along the way. I also made sure to take a few photos of our hotel room at Hotel Gault—a corner room with large windows that opened onto small terraces with flower boxes. Montreal is perfect city for street photography and urban sketching—and no doubt I’ll be returning with the purpose of doing much more of each. But for this weekend, I like to think I did reconnaissance—scoping out all the places I’ll soon return to!
