Montréal’s Old Port: A 17th Century Mind, Body and Soul
Inhale deeply. Feel the cool rush of crisp, northern air charge your cells and the taste of the evening chill prick your tongue. Hear that? The dulcet chatter of jubilant French, dulled by the thrum of bluesy standards. Perhaps it is the rich, chocolate aroma wafting from the next table or the dim, serene lighting that distracts you. You’re not at fault. Nowhere else in the world can your senses absorb everything or nothing at all.
“Bonjour,” a waiter greets, shaking you from your indulgent reveries. “Bienvenue au Vieux-Port de Montréal.”
Assuming you have arrived in this time capsule city to enjoy its culinary offerings, as so many do, you’re in the right place – Jardin Nelson, the pride of Montréal’s old port. On any given weekday, you’ll wait upwards of an hour to be seated at this open-air garden restaurant, but once you are, you won’t ever want to leave. With rustic architecture, lively culture, and food that feeds the soul, it’s everything the municipality encompasses in one bite.
Montréal, an island belonging to Quebec, Canada, is attached to the remainder of the province by a bridge named after its discoverer – Samuel de Champlain. Although much of the land is as modern, flashy and fast-paced as nearby New York City, farther south, tucked along the Saint Lawrence River, the old port, the birthplace of New France in 1605, more closely resembles the area’s 17th century European roots.
Nowhere in the city are those roots more clearly exemplified than the Notre-Dame Basilica. The church presides over the city; its looming twin towers climb high into the sky, casting a haunting beauty onto the square below. Whereas the cool, gray exterior projects a gothic, austere aura, the commanding and colorful interior could not be livelier. Stained glass windows sing. Vaulted ceilings and arches dance. The basilica inhales and exhales through the golden lungs of its majestic, steeply staggered organ – it leaves you breathless.
Even moving beyond the hallowed grounds you find the same pre-modern treatment. Streetlights made to look like gas lamps wink with the wind at those who pass by. A piercing, hollow noise cuts through the stillness of the night. It’s the rhythmic gait of a tall, sturdy black gelding, behind him a magnificent white carriage, creaking over cobblestones with every turn of its wheels’ wooden spokes. The streets are paved unevenly, curving left and right and cratering nearly twice every quarter mile, calloused and chaffed. They’ve been patched and fixed in every imaginable fashion, but they’re all original, a part of history. These wounds have formed scars full of intriguing authenticity on the city’s rough skin.
Filling out that marred flesh is a lengthy string of local shops, dining terraces and hotels, such as the ultra-rustic Auberge du Vieux-Port — bricks of brown, grey and pale gold stacked and layered with mortar by hand; perched upon them, colorful, blooming baskets sway. Striped awnings drape haphazardly, casting shade upon the sidewalks. Painted, splintering signs croak in the wind. In the summer months, these darling spots will flex their charm, strengthening their tourist-maximizing capabilities. They’re the crucial musculature that much of the area’s traveler appeal relies upon.
Inside, a life-giving auburn liquid is nestled on a shelf or lazily poured upon a freshly made crêpe. The liquid? Maple syrup. If blood is thicker than water, then in Quebec, the Canadian staple is densest of all. After trying it on your breakfast, in ice cream, or at its best (boiled and then poured over a sheet of ice) you’ll discover why such a feverish addiction to the sticky, saccharine sap grips the resident population.
Stepping outside, however, provides you with a different flavor. Nearby, the Saint Lawrence River seasons the city’s air with a sprinkle of metallic tang. It’s not unpleasant though – just the opposite, in fact. The main vein of the city’s commerce pumps in hundreds of ships, large and small, bellowing a chorus of clipped and elongated horn tones.
Wrought iron and copper structures, too, contribute to suffusing the old port’s aroma with the alkaline. Everywhere you look, orange and green domes, fences and poles reliably provide the city’s structure – the rusted railing on a fire escape like ribs, the oxidized cupola of city hall like a cranium.
Next to the majestic, white artifice, the central mind of the metropolis, Canadian and Quebec flags whip and snap side by side in the coastal breeze – one the lub, the other the dub of the city’s heartbeat. Despite the centuries of friction between the country and its province, they are economically, geographically, and culturally bound to each other. Public referendums, as recent as in 1995, threatened to extract the French land from its principality. Citizens voted no. Half of a pulse, after all, is only a flat line.
And the Old Port, in all of its archaic splendor, is no flat line.
In every hypnotizing street performer, calling out the crowd, entrancing onlookers with mind-boggling feats of magic, there is passion.
In every delighted family’s bumbling and gleeful attempt at commandeering the ever-popular quadricycle along the St. Lawrence’s coast, there is joy.
In every enthralled jet boater’s cry, bouncing through the river’s rapids, chasing shots of adrenaline through every jostling wave, there is thrill.
In the sum of the Old Port’s veins and blood, flesh and bones, lungs and air, mind and heart, there is undeniably one living aspect – a soul.
In fact, your time in the Old Port of Montréal is no trip at all. Embracing the city from skyline to street, subsuming five senses full of everything is so much more.
It’s like meeting someone new. Grasping her hand. Saying bonjour.