posted 09-02-2007 03:51 PM            

We haven't been there and are looking froward to your after trip report.

posted 09-15-2007 03:53 PM            

The McCord Museum there, which focuses on Canadian history, is an old favorite that has decent silver collections too. This time there wasn't much on display, but there was a very creative use of a couple of teapots - when I have time to get to my camera I'll post pictures, although they aren't very good because the light was quite dim.

In several shops we saw quite nice contemporary jewelry by Quebec artists; all beyond our price range, but some came close.

We got to spend one afternoon doing the touristy thing, bar-hopping through Vieux Montreal. The food at most of these is unremarkable (although overall Montreal is one of the best eating cities in North America, and we had excellent meals in several restaurants), but we found one real "gotcha": a bottle of Evian water requested by a non-drinking colleague that turned out to be priced - unannounced - at $9, almost twice the cost of a good beer. This was at Chez Eric, if I recall the name right, so keep in mind if you go!

Overall, compared to my last visit over a decade ago, we found that English seemed more generally accepted and spoken. I used to regularly have conversations with merchants where they spoke French and I spoke mostly English; this trip that never happened. But we didn't get into some of the more traditionally French neighborhoods on this trip.

As it happened, there was an impressively large baroque Victorian sterling tureen for sale in the lobby of the hotel where our conference was (courtesy of a local dealer). It also had an impressively large price, I estimated about 3-4 times what it would bring at a good auction. But that's about typical for that dealer, as I recall....