Old Montréal’s Marché Bonsécours

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

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

Begin your Montréal visit with a walking orientation tour of the cobblestone streets 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 old 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 teacher, who can email it to you when you get home.

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

DAY TWO: NÔTRE DAME BASILICA, LA VILLE SOUTERRAINE, MARITIME LIFE WORKSHOP

Breakfast in the hotel, then transfer to Place Jacques Cartier to begin a cultural and linguistic Chasse au Trésor. The treasure hunt will end at beautiful Nôtre Dame Basilica (pictured at right) where your guide will lead you on a guided tour of “the Jewel of Montréal”.

Meet your bus in front of Nôtre Dame Basilica 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 to practice your French in “la ville souterraine,” a 39-kilometer network of underground shops and passageways.

This afternoon, your guide will take you on a city sightseeing tour ending at Oratoire St-Joseph 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 at Gare Windsor, transfer to an architecturally acclaimed office building (pictured at left) in the heart of downtown Montréal.

There you can spend the evening ice skating at L’Amphithéâtre de Glace, a 10,000 square foot ice-skating pavilion “without equal in North America”.

EVENING OPTION B: After dinner, depart for a 200-year-old stone fort on Île Ste-Helene, where you will step back in history during an interactive workshop about the harsh shipboard lives of sailors in the 18th century.

During your history lesson, you’ll be introduced to early navigation methods as well as the daily chores, food and the punishments meted out to the crews of the sailing ships of the period.

Your evening will end with a live musket-firing demonstration.

EVENING OPTION C: End your day in the Québec countryside, at an authentic French-Canadian cabane à sucre, where you’ll be meet by a hay wagon pulled by two 2000-pound Percheron horses and taken to a tour of the sugar shacks.

Then, after an all-you-can-eat dinner of typical Québécois fare, you'll spend the evening learning traditional dances and folk songs.

Overnight security begins at 10:00pm.

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

Breakfast in the hotel, then 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 (if the weather is inclement) for lunch on your own and some last minute gift- or souvenir-shopping.

Then meet your bus and begin the first leg or your journey home.

Au revoir, Montréal, à bientôt.