ORGANS CASTLES AND TRAINS, OH MY

Ay day that involves a train is a win in my book.  And this day was even better.  

We started out with a tour of Notre Dame basilica.  I thought it was a cathedral, but turns out they're a bishop short of a cathedral.  However,  the Pope wanted to give them an atta boy for building such a nice church, so he said it was a basilica.  And no, I don't know which pope.  

The church has nice stained glass, but perhaps the most interesting thing about the windows is that instead of being stories from the Bible, they represent the history of the church in Montreal.  

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The interesting story we got was that when they wanted to get this church built In the new gothic style, the only architect in the new world who was capable of it was an Irish Protestant from New York.  It's ikind of entertaining, because the church was meant to stand up against the English, who have consistently been a population majority.  

The architect felt this was his best work and wanted to be buried under the church, but since he wasn't a catholic it was a no go.  Eventually he converted to Catholicism so he was buried there.  There's no official crypt under this church, so he's the only one there.  

The inside decorations are taken from the Ste. Chapelle in Paris.  

At the end of our tour we got a special meeting with the organist who gave us a lot of formation abut organs I general and this organ in particular,and then played us a little concert, including, not surprisingly the Bach Tocatta and Fugue in d minor and then a very nice meditation on Amazing Grace.  

Our train ride to Quebec was nice.  They have a lot of freight trains here.  We had to go on the side track three or maybe four times on a trip that's about a hundred miles or so.  

By the time we arrived In Quebec it was quite chilly, more the kind of weather we packed for.  we checked into our hotel and then went out and had a nice group dinner and looked out over the city from the top of the hill.  

This picture or our room looks like its in black and white, but was just kind of low light.  It's a giant room.  Some people in our group aren't happy with their rooms, but ours is fabulous.