Albany, New York

12210

information@

albanyinstitute.org

Bienvenue à Montréal

May 14 - 16, 2004

The History and Art of Montréal

 Join us for an exciting, insightful tour of Montréal.  See the architecture of the Old City and the art of the Museé des Beaux Arts.  Marvel at the mysterious blue and gold gothic architecture of Notre Dame.  Enjoy fine French cuisine for dinner at North America’s oldest inn and Montréal classic viande fumée for lunch at a vintage1950s landmark deli. Learn from the tour guides and local specialists from Heritage Montréal, the museum, and the cathedral.  Hear the Montréal Symphony Orchestra with soloist Frederica von Stade.  Visit buildings from the seventeenth century and futuristic architecture from the twentieth.  We will stay at the comfortable Novotel Hotel.

Gregory Bell is organizing and leading the tour.  He is an urban planner and a historic preservationist.    His wife, Nancy Goody, has a masters degree in historic preservation and will assist in leading the tour.  Once in Montréal, parts of the tour will be led by local Montréal experts. 

Montréal architectural style  © Canadian Tourism Commission, Pierre St-Jacques

WALKING:

This tour’s focus is both history and art, in keeping with the mission of AIHA.  Our tour is carefully scheduled to include many well-known architectural highlights plus sites which the average tourist would never see.  Saturday morning’s tour will be on foot.  Saturday afternoon will be at the Musée des Beaux Arts.  A talk by docents there will introduce the afternoon visit to the museum’s collections.  Sunday will include some walking, but less than on Saturday.  Our bus will move us across town for certain legs of the tour.  However, please be prepared for walking, including warm clothes.  At the time of our tour, temperatures should be in the 50s and pleasant.  However, Spring comes later in Montréal than in our area.  It might rain, so bring boots and umbrellas.

ARCHITECTURAL SITES:

Our tour schedule will focus on historic architecture on Saturday morning, when, we will explore the Old City first settled in 1642.   On Sunday, we will see how futuristic structures from the 1967 World’s Fair are holding up.  While the schedule has been arranged to see significant historic and modern architecture, there is much more to Montréal.  The following sites are highlights of the tour: 

• Marché Bonsecours, 1847, public market, now Québec products exhibit

• Place Jacques-Cartier, post card view of Old City

• Hotel de Ville,1878, and fortification wall excavations

• Ernest Cormier courthouse,1926

• Notre Dame Church, 1829, spectacular interior

• Bank de Montréal, 1847, rue Saint-Jacques

• Royal Bank, 1927, rue Saint-Jacques, was tallest building in British Empire

• Saint-Sulpice Seminary, 1684, the oldest building in the city

• World Trade Center renovation of whole historic city block

• Parc du Mont-Royal, Frederick Law Olmstead park overlooking city

• Boulevard St. Laurent, The Main, now trendy, yet non-tourist street

• rue Prince Arthur, pedestrian mall (urban planners have been at  work here)

• Habitat, 1967, Moshe Safdie architect, experimental housing construction, MacKay Pier

• Expo World’s Fair site, Buckminster Fuller geodesic dome, 1967, on Ile Notre-Dame

SYMPHONY CONCERT:

A few hours after arrival, in the evening of Friday, May 14, we will attend a sparkling concert by the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal, the Montréal Symphony Orchestra.  Tickets for this concert are included in the price of the tour.  This concert will be at Place des Arts, a large cultural complex similar to Lincoln Center.

The Symphony concert is entitled, Fantasies Exotic, Rustic and Astrological.  It will include Le Rite du Soleil Noir by Cleremont Pépin, Schéhéazade by Maurice Ravel, Chants d’Auvergne by Joseph Canteloube and The Planets by Gustav Holst.  Jacques Lacombe will conduct and mezzo-soprano Frederica von Stade will be the soloist.

SHOPPING:

While shopping in Montréal is fabulous, it is not included in the busy educational schedule of the tour.  For those who would like to leave the tour to shop, limited, specific times would be best for that.  Instead of seeing history or art, for those interested in shopping in the 18 miles of stores in the underground city or in the major department stores, late Friday, Saturday morning or Saturday afternoon would be the best times to do that. 

Art Europeen du XIX siècle at Jean-Noël Desmarais Pavilion of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
 © Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Brian Merrett

AIHA Members: $450/Non-members $ 490

(Based on double occupancy; single occupancy, add $131)

All inclusive:  The package price includes round trip bus transportation, two nights in a luxury hotel, all meals (a total of seven), bus travel within Montreal, tour guides, talks and tickets to a concert of the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal.   

RESERVATION DEADLINE: Friday April 2, 2004 (including registration material and $100 deposit.)  Full payment is required by April 12, 2004. 

For registration information, call Lauren Bryant, Special Events Coordinator at (518) 463-4478, ext. 402.  For detailed content questions, call tour organizer, Gregory Bell at (518) 453-9781.