This area of the tour involved a combination of walking and bus travel. Other stores we visited included an olive oil shop (I had never test tasted olive oil before this; but it was to happen again a few weeks later in Italy!), a chocolate shop and a leather shop. Being the great non-shopper that I am, I managed to buy nothing at any of these fine establishments. At least in part because I didn't want to drag it to Italy and back as well. And I did have some purchasing planned for Italy!
A very pleasant street, somewhere near the Fairmont Bagel shop! It's hard to tell, but in the shadows on the left is the rest of the tour group, charging along to our next destination. On foot.
A row of houses. This style - an outdoor staircase and entrances one level up from the street - is common in this area of Montreal.
A full frontal image of one of these buildings. Note that there is a single door at street level, and then three doors one floor up. I believe the three doors lead to apartments on different floors, but I can't figure out why there are 4 doors (one at street level) and three upper ones for a building with 3 floors. I'm guessing that the two outer doors open to one apartment each on the middle floor; the middle door goes up and then there are internal doors to the two apartments on the top floor. I've been unable to find an answer with Google! And that would leave the bottom floor door for the apartments at ground level. And the reason for this: there was some tax issue with ground level doors, so having the entrance door raised, avoided the tax.
By this time we were at the chocolate tasting part of the morning's tour. No photos in any of the other shops, as there wasn't really all that much to see (for me, anyway). And the chocolate shop was small; I think our group filled it completely. This is the street with the chocolate shop, which was just to the right of where I was standing. The chocolate was nice.
The building adjacent to the chocolate shop. Again, there are stairs to reach the front door one level up from the street. But a slightly more elegant (and probably annoying for anybody delivering goods) curved staircase is possible because of the lane at the side of the building.
The apartment buildings across the street - same theme, different colours.
The alley behind the apartment buildings, specifically the one from two photos above, with the staircase twisting around the corner. Parking is a real problem here, but then car ownership is not a requirement, as there is good public transport.
KPLU does Montreal Alleys - the next exciting adventure with the KPLU Travel Club! Don't miss it! Notice the attention being paid to our guide, who is a Montreal resident and a great lover of her city.
The rear of one of the apartment buildings. Given the symmetry of the building, I would guess there are two apartments per floor; long, thin apartments.
Culinary Montreal