Ice skating at Bassin Bonseours in the Port of Montréal

YOUR SCHOOL FRENCH CLUB
UNE EXCURSION HIVERNALE A LA VILLE DE MONTRÉAL

DAY ONE: BIENVENUE À MONTRÉAL, OLD MONTRÉAL, CAMERALESS ANIMATION WORKSHOP

Bienvenue à Montréal, the second largest French-speaking city in the world; meet your VISIT QUÉBEC guide at your European-style hotel at the edge of Montréal’s colorful Latin Quarter, check in and freshen up.

Depart on a walking orientation tour of Old Montréal, ending at a French-Canadian sports restaurant (with a predictable bias toward the Montréal Canadiens) where you’ll have dinner in an historic building filled with every conceivable piece of sports paraphernalia in every imaginable place.

After dinner, transfer back to the Latin Quarter for interactive “Cameraless Animation” workshop (in French or English or FSL). You and your classmates will create an animated movie by drawing directly onto film, which you will view on a large screen before you leave. Every member of the group will have a part. The film will be converted to a Windows Media File and emailed to your group leader, who can forward it to you when you get home.

After the workshop, walk a block back to the hotel. Overnight security begins at 10:30pm.

DAY TWO: NÔTRE DAME BASILICA, LA VILLE SOUTERRAINE AND CURLING

Breakfast in the hotel, then transfer to Nôtre Dame Basilica, the Jewel of Montréal (pictured at left), where your guide will lead you on a guided tour of one of the most beautiful churches in all the Americas.

Walk next to the Musée d'archéologie et d'histoire de Montréal, the newest museum with the oldest artifacts in the city. There, after a 15-minute multi-media presentation about the history of the City, you will descend into its 350-year-old ruins to the very birthplace of Montréal.

Meet your bus in front the Old Custom House and transfer to Place Montréal Trust, “le coeur de Montréal”, where you will descend into the vast Underground City for lunch on your own at one of the many European-style fast-food restaurants in the food court. After lunch, you can break you’re your subgroups then you’ll be free for the early afternoon to practice your French in “la ville souterraine,” a 39-kilometer network of underground shops and passageways.

Later, your guide will take you on a mid afternoon city sightseeing tour ending (after a stop at the Mount Royal lookout) at St. Joseph’s Oratory where you can climb the 283 steps to the basilica to explore and enjoy the beautiful view of the City of Montréal below.

EVENING OPTION A: After dinner in historic Windsor Station, depart for a 200-year-old stone fort on Île Ste-Helene, where you will be introduced to the quintessentially Canadian game of curling, as introduced to North America by Scottish soldiers 250 years ago, using curling irons made by cannonballs.

Your curling competition (pictured at right) will end with a cup of chocolat chaud around the campfire, and a live musket-firing demonstration.

EVENING OPTION B:After dinner at historic Windsor Station, (the oldest of North America’s metropolitan railway stations), walk next door to 1000 de la Gauchetiere, an architecturally acclaimed office building in the heart of downtown Montréal. There you can spend the evening under its glass pyramids, ice skating at L’Amphithéâtre de Glace, a 10,000 square foot ice-skating pavilion “without equal in North America”.

EVENING OPTION C:End your day with an all you can eat Québeçois dinner and an evening of traditional music and folk dancing (pictured at left) in the Québec countryside at an authentic French-Canadian cabane à sucre.

Security services begin at the hotel at 10:00pm.

DAY THREE: BIODÔME, FUNICULAIRE, OLD MONTRÉAL, AU REVOIR

After breakfast in the hotel, load your bags on the bus and transfer to the Biodôme de Montréal at Montréal’s Parc Olympique, the venue of the 1976 Summer Olympic Games. Upon entering the Biodôme, you will walk down a 500-meter Nature Path and, in a matter of minutes, you’ll go from a hot and moist tropical rain forest to the Antarctic.

Along the way, you will pass through the four major natural environments found in South, Central, and North America and at the North and South Poles, where 4000 animals from 200 species reside.

After your Biodôme visit you will
make a two-minute, 556-foot ascent on the Funiculaire to the top of the world's tallest inclined tower for a panoramic, 50-mile view of Montréal, the St. Lawrence Seaway and the surrounding countryside. On a clear day you can see all the way to the Green Mountains of Vermont and the Adirondack Mountains of New York.

Return to sea level and return to your choice of Place Jacques Cartier in Old Montréal or the Eaton Centre in the Montréal underground for lunch on your own and some last minute gift- or souvenir-shopping.

After lunch, meet your bus and begin the first leg of your journey home.

Au revoir, Montréal, à bientôt.