Yves Saint Laurent Exhibition at Museum of Fine Arts – Montreal Canada

Discovering Montreal Canada By Terri and Martin Hirsch We departed Quebec City by VIA Rail Canada for a three hour trip to Montreal. A First Class Lounge afforded us newspapers, complimentary snacks and beverages and internet accessibility. As we passed through small towns and forestry, this comfortable scenic route was enhanced by a hot lunch with a glass of wine. Shortly after, we arrived at our hotel across the street from Montreal’s Central Station. The Hilton Montreal Bonaventure Hotel is situated on top of a 17-story building, the Place Bonaventure. This unique hotel offers beautiful guest rooms, suites, an executive club room and magnificent views of the city. On the rooftop is an outdoor pool, heated year-round. It also offers a business center, high-speed wireless Internet and more than 42,000 square feet of meeting and event space. The Hilton Montreal Bonaventure is linked to the underground metro system in the downtown section of the City. In the 1950’s a metro system was built underground. When it was first built it only had office buildings and a shopping area. Today, Montreal is a world-class cosmopolitan city with an underground that has just about everything except a funeral parlor. Montreal’s underground city is 20 miles in length and consists of pedestrian walkways and tunnels linking metro stations. Touring the walled city of Old Montreal, we admired a house on one side of the street dating back to 1875 and a boutique hotel on the other side of the street. Narrow-cobblestone streets and 18th and 19th century Victorian buildings were made out of grey stone. This charming historical part of Old Montreal consisted of numerous museums, public squares, art galleries, boutiques, restaurants, sidewalk cafes and shops specializing in furniture, fashion and gourmet groceries. In short, there is something for everyone. In another part of the city we noticed homes with outside staircases made of broad iron. This design dates back to a time when homes in the city’s well-to-do neighborhoods were set back from the street. When this trend started duplex and triplexes appeared with outer staircases of all different shapes and sizes. Our guided tour continued through Saint Laurent Boulevard where lounges, bars and discotheques are Montreal’s nightlife hot spots. Another nightlife area was the Plateau Mont-Royal with its colorful bars, restaurants and cafes. While the Plateau Mont-Royal is a dynamic and trendy section, a trip to the top of Mont Royal Park will give you a grand view of the City of Montreal. This lookout was landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted, known for his work in New York Central Park. Following our tour, we headed downtown for lunch at Garcon. Garcon is a gourmet restaurant, located in Montreal’s famous Golden Square Mile. This French cuisine was a perfect dining experience with wine and a glorious lunch. After lunch we took the train to Montreal’s Botanical Gardens. An open mini-train was available at designated stops to take us around the Gardens. Some of the highlights were an indoor insect pavilion and a Japanese Garden that had a Tea Room, Bonsai Courtyard and a Peace Bell. This Bell is a solemn reminder of the bombing of Hiroshima in August 1945. From Montreal’s Botanical Gardens a shuttle bus took us to the Biodome, an institution that revolves around education, conservation and research with the aim of protecting our planet’s survival. Here, plants and animals, cliffs and waterways are recreated with stunning realism. A constantly revolving ecosystem keeps the air in the tropical gardens hot and humid. As you walk from section to section the temperature changes so plants and animals can adapt to their own environment. A pathway ran alongside an underwater observation where we spotted hundreds of fish swimming in a basin filled with sea water. This pathway continued past a saltwater marsh where seabirds and penguins were on display. In the Biodomes’s Polar World we were surrounded by the Arctic penguins and the Antarctic ice. As we walked through the door of The Visitors from Madagascar we stepped into a habitat typical of the island of Madagascar. Madagascar is an island off the coast of Africa. On display were frogs, geckos, fish and lemurs, which had faces like foxes, big eyes and long stripped tails. Throughout this exhibition a nature interpreter was on hand to answer questions. The Visitors from Madagascar exhibit will be on display until November 16, 2008. The Olympic Park, originally built in 1976 for the XXI Olympics games, was made up of a Stadium, a Tower and Sports Center. A 30-minute guided tour took us through the history of the Olympic Park’s past and modern architecture. Today, the Sports Center has seven pools, a widely equipped fitness center and numerous tennis courts. Afterward, we entered a two-level cable car to the top of the Tower Observatory that took approximately 2-minutes. This funicular is the only one in the world that works on a curbed structure – a hydraulic system which allows the cabin to remain horizontal at all times. At the top of this inclined tower a spectacular panoramic view of Montreal could be seen. The following morning we toured the Museum of Fine Arts. Admission to the Museum’s collection is free at all times in the Jean-Noel Desmarais Pavilion. A recent acquisition being presented from June 19 to December 7, 2008 evolved around an exhibition celebrating momentous events in the history of Montreal. It featured a selection of painting, drawings and photographs. A temporary exhibition of American Prints between the Wars in the United States depicted a period of dramatic transformation that saw the growth of major metropolitan centers. At the Museum of Fine Arts Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion an exquisite temporary exhibition on the life of Yves Saint Laurent was presented from May 29 to September 28, 2008. Yves Saint Laurent is famous for revolutionizing the foundation of modern women’s wear. When Yves Saint Laurent decided to end his career in 2002 a foundation was created to preserve the five thousand items of clothing designed by him, as well as more than fifteen thousand drawings, sketches and miscellaneous items. This exhibition was divided into four themes. In ‘The Stroke of a Pencil’ a selection of predominantly black garments were highlighted by touches of shades of pink, red and white on bubble skirts, trapeze dresses and voluminous cloaks. ‘The Yves Saint Laurent Revolution’ dressed women in the style of men using pantsuits inspired by men’s tailoring, such as safari jackets and pea coats. The ‘Palate’ theme is known for its candy-colored hues. In his homage to Morocco, he turned to brightly colored fabrics of motifs and created dresses with a splashy effect: turquoise and pink, green and orange and black and blue. In the ‘Lyrical Sources – In Remembrance of Things Past’ exquisite dresses of the 17th and 18th centuries were on display. The Yves Saint Laurent exhibition will be presented at the de Young Museum in San Francisco from November 1, 2008 to April, 2009. Our next stop was the Pointe-a-Calliere, Museum of Archaeology and History at 350 Place Royal. Pointe-a-Calliere is a museum complex in the heart of old Montreal. The Museum officially opened on this site in 1992 to mark the 350th birthday of the foundation of the city. An archaological crypt and the remains of structures erected over the centuries lies beneath this complex. Numerous models showed how Place Royale evolved from Native times to the 19th century. Through artifacts we relived the history of this site with stones and paved streets from the late 18th century and the base of a fountain that enclosed Customs Square. This section told the story of a city under a city with the first Catholic Church, marketplace, business district and Governor Callier’s residence. Another exhibition ‘Montreal Love Stories’, the Cultural Connection tells the story of men and women who have come from afar and chose to settle and live in Montreal. A series of intimate portraits, letters, photos and video projections gave us glimpses into the lives of people who made their homes in this cultural crossroad that Montreal has become through the centuries. For information on Via Rail Canada: http://www.viarail.com For information on Montreal: http://www.VisitMontreal.com or http://www.tourisme-montreal.org For Heritage and History: www.old.montreal.qc.ca Or Quebec Region: http://www.quebecregion.com