The many faces of Montreal

Last Sunday I met a friend for a late lunch at a small cafe on St-Denis street here in Montreal. It's called 'Juliette et Chocolat' and the address is 1615 Rue St-Denis. If ever you're in town you should totally give it a shot, they have, I kid you not, the BEST hot chocolate you will EVER have and some really great food too. Anyhow, our plan was simply to go out for lunch and chat up a storm, but we ended up going for a walk after, a very long walk. We went from St-Denis street up to Square St-Louis which is a square with some lovely old houses around it.

We then went from there to St-Laurent street and all the way down it to De la Gauchetière and into Chinatown because my friend wanted to look for a jewlery box and some tea. I always love going to Chinatown because it really is like a little city within the city and it's always so colorful and full of people, I also love how there are always traditional chinese musicians there, like these two:
After spending about a half hour enjoying Chinatown, we figured that Old Montreal was just around the corner and I wanted to get a few pictures of Notre-Dame Basilica and also to check out the entrance fee. You know, checking out the competition since I work at the Oratory and all. Anyhow, I,ve always really loved the Basilica, my grandparents took us there every year for the longest time and it really is beautiful on the inside as well as on the outside. I was only able to get pictures of the outside this time since there was a mass going on inside, but that was really all I was looking for since I didn't have my tripod with me and inside pictures would not have turned out because of the dim lighting.
So, that was the end of our walk. The whole thing took us about two hours, two and a half if you count all our little stops and it was simply lovely. A lot of people say that once you've been living somewhere long enough, you just stop seeing all the amazing things about it. I've been living in Montreal my entire life and I never grow tired of walking around the city and admiring it. Maybe it's because I'm always looking for something to take a picture of, but I doubt it :o)