Nancy Drew and The Case of the Missing Mountain

Because I'd been little more than a bump on a log yesterday, I decided to explore more of Montreal today. My mission: Climb the Mountain. For those of you who may be geographically and/or topographically impaired like me, Montreal is a relatively flat city on a small island. The only exception to its flatness is a single mountain. Since I'd been unsuccessful in walking all the way to the mountain my first weekend here, and I've since figured out the metro system, I decided to take the metro there. According to the mountain's website (yes, the mountain blogs, just like me), you can take really "any street" to get there once you're in the vicinity.

I took the metro to a stop called Place-des-Arts. Sounded like a nice stop to me. As the name implied, this stop planted me smack dab in the middle of the arts district and right at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Good to know--but not for today! I exited the station and looked around. While I didn't see the mountain, I did see a political rally going on right outside. Like the U.S., Canada is in the middle of elections. They vote next week, I think. The political rally was for people against Harper. I'm not 100% sure, but I think Harper is the leader of the conservative party. I listened for a couple of minutes (plenty of harsh references to Bush, interestingly), then I moved on in search of the mountain.

Several blocks later and still no mountain. I'm not even sure whether I'm walking towards or away from it, but I've happened upon what appears to be the Best Shopping District on the Planet, so I continue to walk down this busy street. At every corner, I think, "Heeeere, mountain, mountain, mountain...come out, come out wherever you are..." but it doesn't want to play. How can I be missing an entire mountain?

Finally, I found it. It's at the corner of Banana Republic (that's how I'll remember how to get there). I walked up the street towards it. Interestingly, this lands me at McGill University. I'd been wondering where that was. I decided to walk through the campus. It's beautiful , and right at the base of the mountain. Unfortunately, once I got all the way to where the mountain starts, I noted a large wall that separates the mountain from everything else.

Because this city's still new to me, I didn't want to take too many side streets trying to find my way past this wall, lest I should lose my way back to the subway station and end up wandering the streets forever. So, I let the mountain win once again. I walked back through the shops, stopped in a beautiful church and peacefully listened to the choir for awhile, then made my way home.

I promise you: I will climb this mountain before I leave Montreal. It can run, but it cannot hide. (Except for when it hides.)

Here are some more pictures from my walk today.