Montreal Street Art

It rained all day. We walked, we enjoyed great street art, ate amazing food and saw a church or two.

• This cute little hotel we are staying at offers a continental breakfast in a wicker basket hanging on your room door knob… how fun is that!
• We were away by 8am and caught the subway/bus north to Little Italy to see a church that I didn’t see yesterday… a church I just had to see… St. Michael and St. Anthony, designed and decorated by Guido Nincheri. Alas, we missed the morning mass and it was closed! But I called the office and got info on the evening mass schedule. We would return later in the afternoon on our way to dinner.
• We walked south the length of Rue St. Laurent admiring the fantastic street art murals painted on the sides of buldings at almost every intersection. What a vibrant art culture in this city!
• At the bottom of R. St. Laurent, we walked through the gates of Chinatown and made our way to St. Patrick’s Basilica. Huge, dark and solemn, it is a very majestic church.
• A snack refresher at Crew Cafe in the old Royal Bank building on Rue St. Jacques. Excellent salad and coffee in such a grand setting.
• Back to the hotel to dry out for the afternoon
• On the bus again at 5pm to head back to Outremont neighborhood to see two more churches:
• Saint Viateur: what a surprise to find this church complete with several Nincheri frescoes. 5 o’clock mass was just starting so Monica and I sat at the back and enjoyed the music. The stained glass is phenomenal but it’s the elaborate carvings of the alter and reredos that draw the eye.
• Finally, St. Michael and St. Anthony: Guido Nincheri’s painted all the frescoes here and they are beautiful. Hard to imagine him laying on scaffolding for hours some 80 feet off the floor as he painted. And the huge stained glass fan windows are spell binding with their bright orange splashes of color.
• Dinner was at Main on Rue St. Laurent for some famous Montreal smoked meat sandwiches. They are everything and more they claim to be… huge and delicious. I couldn’t finish mine!

Here are the day’s photos: Montreal Street Art