Longueuil (Oct. 10)
Our campground in Longueuil was very basic. It appears to be part of the marina with which it shares an entrance. (Note the sculpture on the roof of the marina restaurant.) There was no staff except the gatekeeper, who collected our fee and monitored vehicles in an out of the park. Most campsites had electricity. None had water or sewers, but there was a communal hose for potable water and a dump station.
What the campground has is location, location, location. Firstly, we had the million dollar view. We parked backwards in the site so that our windshield faced the St. Lawrence with its view of the seaway shipping lane, the old port of Montreal and the Jacques Cartier Bridge (which was magnificently lit up as part of the Canada 150, Montreal 375 celebration). We could also see the Olympic Stadium and the distinctive leaning towner which supports its roof.
The campground is at the junction of several bicycle paths, including the TransCanada trail, and routes into Montreal. It is less than an hour ride into Old Montreal (the tourist district) by bicycle and only about 20 minutes by car. A walk through the marina along the bicycle path takes you to Marie-Victorin Park. A pedestrian overpass takes you into the town of Longueuil (which we did not visit).
For our first day in Montreal, we took the bicycle path over the Victoria Bridge into Old Montreal. This took us along the St. Lawrence, and then to Isle St. Helene, which was the site of the 1967 World Fair, and is now the Montreal Biosphere. The scene is dominated by the geodesic dome (behind me) which was so unique and innovative for its time. From there you cross to the main island and the buildings of Habitat 67, which are still in use as apartments, and then into the old port, with its many storage silos. The trail then takes you over one of the locks of the Lachine Canal, which bypass the Lachine Rapids, and on into the Old City and Old Port. We parked our bikes by the Canada 150 sign, and walked around the Old City, stopping for a snack at a cute coffee shop/candy store.
In 1967 I was 15 years old. My family took a trip in the early spring to see the World’s Fair, tent camping near the city. (We froze!) I remember lots of innovative architecture and exhibits. I had friends from summer camp in Montreal, so I got a reprieve from the cold by being a house guest. However, I paid for it by revisiting the most lauded exhibits (which I had already visited with my family) with my friends, and thus missed some of the less popular buildings which my family visited without me. In any case, seeing the dome and Habitat 67 brought back memories, and I shall have to look at some of my photos of the trip when I get home.
Chuck and I also walked around the old City Market, now converted to indoor boutiques and restaurants. 
Some places were already working on Hallowe’en decorations including these rather macabre cages of skeletons.
I thought it would be a simple matter to retrace our path on the way home, but a multiplicity of bicycle trails meet in the Old City. It took a few tries and Google maps to find our way back to the Lachine lock and our path home.
On Friday we planned to meet my friend and colleague Christian and his companion Claudine for dinner. We decided to drive back to the Old City for the afternoon so that we could take Rumple with us.
We retraced some of our walk through the Old City as well as viewing the remainder of the Old Port tourist district for several hours. With about an hour left before dinner, we decided to visit our sabbatical home and see what we could remember.
In 1991, when I was pregnant with Jonathan, we took a one semester study leave in Montreal, arranged by Christian and two other friends. We lived in an apartment overlooking Parc Lafontaine, with its ponds that are used for ice skating in the winter. We have fond memories of watching the pond as well as the city snow removal operations from a turret at the corner of our living room.
The area has changed a bit since we lived there and we did not recognize our apartment at a glance. We decided that a walk around the pond would be more fun than looking for our old home.
The first problem was to get from our car to the pond. The park is very popular with bikers and joggers, and there were 2 parallel paths around the perimeter where we had to dodge the constant stream of bicycle and pedestrian traffic to get to the pond walkway.
We were almost immediately confronted by what appeared to be an outsize white squirrel. We saw several more of these along with more typical American grey and Canadian black squirrels. We certainly had not seen any of white squirrels during our previous visit, although with snow on the ground they might have been well-camouflaged.
According to the internet, the white squirrels are a coat-color mutation of the American grey squirrels. Apparently in the wild, there is a survival disadvantage to the white coat. However, in a city park, with more limited predators (and perhaps a higher rate of being fed by humans) the white squirrels have been able to thrive. I am not sure if the white squirrels really are bigger than the grey squirrels, or whether this was an illusion. However, they do seem to be confined to this one city park and its environs.
After walking around the park pond (a walk we had done at least twice daily with our dog Lady during our Montreal sojourn) it was time to meet up with our friends. We had a very nice dinner, catching up with Christian and getting to know Claudine a bit. As usual, we forgot to take pictures.
Then it was time to head back to the RV, for our final night in the Montreal area.