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After 27 years, Montreal's Jazz Festival has become the world's largest event of this kind with some 100 free concerts and an equal number of paying presentations in eleven days.
Dozens of venues, large and small, outside and inside within walking distance of Montreal's Place des Arts, shown behind the fountain in this photo, are filled to capacity by jazz lovers from all over the world.
Here is another view of the Place des Arts fountain, this time looking south from the other end towards the Desjardins Complex.
Puppet shows and play areas are provided to entertain small children so that their parents can enjoy the free open air jazz concerts.
In this pair of mime artists, the taller one plays the role of the puppeteer controlling the motions of her puppet with pink ribbons.
There is a free concert going on somewhere almost non stop during the 11 day festival. I see a crowd so that's where I'm going.
Indeed, a small jazz group held the attention of the crowd on the Amarula Terrace between the Desjardins complex on the other side of Ste-Catherine street and the Contemporary Art Gallery on the right.
The neighbouring streets are closed during the festival. The General Motors stage in the background, set up in the intersection of Ste-Catherine and Jeanne Mance streets can be seen by huge crowds when it is used.
The small Hydro-Québec stage can be seen from all over the Festival Village seen from its northern end in the following panorama.
The Festival Village, next to the concert hall, offers restaurants, beer outlets, shops and children's amusements. You can get a glimpse of the Hydro-Québec stage at the far end. In the tent on the right, a dozen make-up artists transform children's faces into those of a variety of animals, mostly cats.
Many small stages like the Loto-Québec venue on Maisonneuve boulevard, north of the Festival Village, have been setup all around the Place des Arts to accommodate all the minor jazz groups who flock to Montreal during the festival.
Here is another one that I came across a short distance east on Maisonneuve blvd. on my way home. It was sponsored by Stella Artois.
My walk to the metro took me by the famous "Foufounes électriques" bar a few blocks further east. I couldn't resist taking this picture thinking that the name might amuse some of you (it means something like "electrified buns").
I had not yet visited Quebec's brand-new National Library across the street from the Berri-Uqam metro station so I dropped in to register and get a library card.
Built at a cost of 142 million dollars, it holds 4.1 million documents (1.2 million books, 1.2 other documents and 1.6 microfiles) most of which are displayed on 41 000 linear meters of shelves in the 33 000 square meter building.
The huge library was an instant success. Most books can be selected self service. The check out line is long but it's moving smoothly.
Finally, it was such a nice day that I chose to wait 20 minutes for the bus in this pleasant park instead of taking the metro.
That evening, I learned that I had missed the "Cari-Fiesta" a very colourful annual parade of people of Caribbean origin who spend the winter preparing extraordinary costumes for this exuberant celebration of the hot sun they left behind for a better standard of living here.
There are so many public events of all sorts in the summer that it's almost impossible to attend all of them.
Some time later, my friend Jocelyne drove me to take pictures of two spectacular market buildings and their surroundings, one in Old Montreal and the other in the Hochelaga - Maisonneuve area near the olympic stadium.
Personally, I think that Old Montreal has lost a lot of its charm because it has become too touristy. These horse and buggy rigs waiting for tourists on rue de la Commune are a sure sign of touristic saturation wherever they are found in the world and Old Montreal is no exception.
I do admit that Old Montreal has been beautifully restored and that it does have nice shops and restaurants but I seldom go there, it is just too touristy for my taste. The large building with the dome on rue de la Commune is the Bonsecours Market built in 1847. You can no longer find fruit and vegetables there because it was completely restored as a historical monument in 1996. Now it houses three floors of art galleries, boutiques, restaurants and reception halls. There is even a ballroom.
One city block west of the market lies Place Jacques Cartier that extends from rue de la Commune to rue Notre-Dame where the City Hall is located. The square, surrounded by restaurants with terraces had many visitors in spite of the bad weather.
This is Montreal's city Hall. The balcony over the entrance is where general de Gaulle became a hero to half of the Quebec population and outraged the ROC (rest of Canada) by shouting "Vive le Québec Libre" to an ecstatic crowd on July 24th 1967.
The Old Port of Montreal, across rue de la Commune from Place Jacques Cartier, has been transformed into a tourist attraction with boutiques, restaurants and a marina that you can see in this 360 degree mobile panorama. It was a dull day but the place was full of tourists anyway.
It looks like a chateau or a city hall with its grand fountain but it's only the Marché de Maisonneuve constructed around 1900 by engineer Marius Dufresne who also built the grandiose nearby public baths and much of the neighbourhood. The impressive stone building was transformed into a community centre when the fruits, vegetables, cheese and meats moved into the modern market building on the right.
Bennett street is one of the nicer streets of the Hochelaga-Maisonneuve area that is generally considered a low income neighbourhood.
The corner of Ontario and Nicolet streets is representative of this working class environment.
Aird street, parallel to Bennett and perpendicular to the commercial Ontario street, also has these exterior stairs that I do not like but the tenement buildings are sound, well maintained and definitely nicer than the small two storey houses of the Plateau. The low rents in this area are a bargain
Hochelaga-Maisonneuve is just south of the olympic stadium so I took this panorama of this structure on Pierre de Coubertin street where certain athletic competitions were held during the 1976 olympic games. It has now become the "Biodôme" where visitors can observe a variety of animals in their expertly reproduced polar, temperate, equatorial and marine environments. The Biodôme is is very popular with Montrealers and tourists alike, particularly children.
