Voiles en Voiles Theme Park

Voiles en Voiles
Montreal Old Port

July 1 - September 7, 2015

An official inauguration of a new theme park took place in the Montreal's Old Port. This family oriented amusement park is quite unique in the world. It consists of life-size replicas of two shipsfrom the 18th century: a royal boat and a pirate ship. The ships are close to each other, in a near collision situation, as one ship is most likely trying to overtake the other. To either escape an imaginary collision, or to board the other ship, the visitors can cling to and navigate through 7 different aerial courses. They are placed at different heights and consist of varying degrees of difficulty each with specific features and elements.

The theme park offers a total of 61 games in 7 different challenge courses suitable to all age groups starting from the age of three years. There are:

• 5 air routes of varying difficulty and different heights (from 1 to 10 meters);
• 2 collision courses (48 meters downhill and 6 meters high) that will launch a visitor for the attack of one of the boats
• 4 climbing routes (2 starters, 2 intermediate)
• 3 courses for the little ones in huge inflatable thematic structures

In addition to many visitors and tourists, the site can also accommodate school groups, day care and children's parties. It will be open every day of the week until Labour Day. After the Labour Day, it will be open only on weekends until November 1, 2015.

The Voiles en Voiles Theme Park is located in the Old Port's Place des Vestiges, right in front of the Marché Bonsecours.

For more information, visit the Voiles en Voiles webpage and their activities page, or their Facebook page.

Click on images to enlarge them.

Parc Jean-Drapeau Summer 2015

Parc Jean-Drapeau
2015 Summer Program

Parc Jean-Drapeau has launched its Summer 2015 season today by unveiling a diverse and extensive program of activities. The Parc will open its summer activities to the public on Thursday, June 18, 2015. And on Saturday, June 20, 2015 the public is invited to attend Discovery Day. Most of the Discovery Day activities that require a fee will be offered at a discount, and there will be entertainment and contests at the Beach.

Some of the notable events featured at the Park in the summer of 2015 will include the fireworks competition l’International des Feux Loto-Québec, the Fullflex Express Tour, the Osheaga Festival, Heavy Montréal, ÎleSoniq, The Color Run, Open House on Québec Farms, the Montréal dragon boat challenge, the UG CrossFit Series, Montréal Marathon, and Week-ends du monde presented by Loto-Québec which is a Société du parc Jean-Drapeau produced event.

The île Notre-Dame Beach is marking its 25th anniversary this year. It has been newly renamed in honour of former Montréal mayor Jean Doré. A veritable oasis situated close to downtow, the beach this year this boasts a new aquatic entertainment spot - Aquazilla, a 30-by-35 metre floating inflatable structure composed of obstacles, slides and platforms. This activity complements such existing ones as teletraction wakeboarding, boating, stand-up paddleboard and beach volleyball. Also, a wide range of promotional activities will be organized on the site throughout the summer.

Parc Jean-Drapeau offers to its visitors boating activities at the Jean-Doré Beach, cycling and in-line skating on the Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, cultural tours of the Stewart Museum and the Biosphère, Environment Museum, swimming at the Aquatic Complex, and discovering public art works. One can also take a self-guided tour of Expo 67, do Flyboarding, a new extreme sport in which a water-jet allows you to fly above the water, and for those who just wish to take a leisurely walk, there are kilometres of walking trails.

Unfortunately, today was a very gloomy and rainy day. My own photos of the new activities offered this summer - Aquazilla and Flyboarding - did turn out too well, but the professional photos at the very top of this article and the one just above express all the excitement and appreciation these new activities will generate.

For more information, visit the Parc Jean-Drapeau website.

You can also watch YouTube videos about Park's various activities here.

Port of Montreal: AIDA Bella Cruise Ship

AIDA Bella

The German cruise ship AIDA Bella, measuring 253 meters long, and with the capacity of 2,500 people, is the largest passenger ship that has ever docked in Montreal. It is presently moored at the Port of Montreal's Alexandra Pier. It will stay there for two days, after which it will depart to New York and the Caribbean.

The ship comprises of 14 levels, the lowest two are accessible only to the crew members. Level 3 has a partial passenger access, since this is where the cruse’s medical centre  or “hospital” as it was referred to by a crew member, is located.

Above are photos of the ship's two passageways. One on the left leads to the elevators and a staircase at the back, and the one on the right is in the shopping area winding in between speciality boutiques. Notice the stylized golden columns in both pictures that one can also find in other areas of the ship. Somehow, these columns project the proportions of a female's body. Is this the artistic rendition of AIDA, the name of the German shipping company that build and owns the boat, and also the name of the main heroin of Giuseppe Verdi's opera by the same name?

Those stylized AIDA columns are not the only art objects on the ship. There is also an art gallery for the art-loving passengers, seen in the photo just below.

The ship has several dining areas which are open to all the passengers at the same time, unlike in other cruisers where people are scheduled to eat at certain and at different times. In AIDA Bella's dining areas , the food is included in the price of the cruise ticket. In addition, there are several restaurents  where the passengers can choose to eat and pay for their food. 

There are also several bars on the ship. The largest one is the Star-shaped Bar pictured in the photo above to the right.

What would a cruise ship be without an exercise room and a lounging area. Of course AIDA Bella has them! You can see both in the photos above.

For the warm summer days, there are chaiselongs and swimming pools on the upper-most deck. As you can see from the photos above and below, the design of the upper deck is quite dramatic. It has both futuristic and classical, amphitheatre-like elements.

The ship also has a spa with a jacuzzi set into a tropical setting, and a discotheque which is full of passengers when the ship is at sea.

However, during the ship's stay in Montreal, and only as a special exception due to the panoramic setting of the Montreal's Port in the historical part of the city, the discotheque is turned into a bar with a mellow background music. The people sit on the discotheque's terrace and admire the Montreal's night scenery with its special lights and shapes.

If the pictures above looked devote of people, it is simply because during the day the passengers embark on various tourist excursions. Some take guided tours in Montreal, organized by the Tourism Montreal bureau, others go on a day trip Ottawa or to the Laurentian mountains north of Montreal. The Ottawa trip has proven especially popular this year.

AIDA Bella caters to the German tourists. Those who speak English would feel quite comfortable on the ship, even if they are not German. The AIDA cruise line has not yet ventured into serving multilingual clientele without any knowledge of either German or English.

Mountain Equipment Co-op: New Boutique on St. Denis Street

Mountain Equipment Co-op (MEC) today inaugurated a new store in the center of Montreal, on St. Denis street, in the part of the city called the Plateau. The new store is actually referred to as boutique. It does not carry the same great variety of clothing and equipment as their regular outlets. In fact, the size of the new retail place is only 1/5 of that of a MEC regular outlet.

This new MEC location has a novel concept, referred to as an urban boutique. The word ‘urban’ however does not designate that the boutique is located in the middle of a city and residential areas, but rather refers to the fact that it is geared to the urban population. Whereas previously Mountain Equipment Co-op had concerned itself chiefly with the “hard-line” sports, like marathon running, extreme rock climbing or hiking, the management has now realized that many former extreme sports practitioners have grown up, married, and have children. Their goals are no longer to excel and win in arduous sports, but to keep in good shape and enjoy the process. Now, instead of daily training, they might jog short distances twice per week, and go camping or for leasure hikes in nature with their children and family on weekends. Therefore, the sport clothing they buy has to also be used as a casual everyday wear in the city.

MEC now pays a special attention to needs of their female clientele who would like to look fashionable when wearing their sport clothing in the city. Therefore, they will be concerning themselves not only with the functionality of the clothing, but the design and colour.

The management has stated that the new MEC boutique is viewed as a kind of a laboratory to see what the city clients’ everyday needs are and how to adjust the items offered to satisfy those needs. They plan to closely observe and adjust this new concept during the next two years. As they rightly state, the cargo pants no longer satisfy especially the female clientele, and what was a standard in sports closing five years ago no longer fits the needs.

I would therefore urge all the readers of this post to go and visit the new MEC boutique located at 4394 St Denis Street, Montreal. From the middle of October you would be able to pick up a pamphlet that would enumerate all the special activities and conferences that the new MEC boutique will be holding to help people to keep in shape in the urban setting. Also, you can order through this store any items that the Montreal’s big MEC outlet has in stock, and can pick it up at the boutique in one hour’s time. In case you will have to return the item, it could be also processed through the St. Denis street boutique.

The new store’s MEC website.

Montreal's Clock Tower Urban Beach

Clock Tower Urban Beach

In Montreal, as a number of other large cities like Paris, Prague, Amsterdam and Toronto, now has its own urban beach with no access to water. It features beautiful white sand, pretty light blue umbrellas, white and blue wooden beach chairs, and refreshing sprinklers so fine that what comes out of them does not even feel like water but only as moisture laden air mist.

From the beach one can see an old grain silo that was converted into condominiums (photo above), as well as Molson brewery, the oldest brewery in North America that continues to produce beer on its very original founding site. Those of you who have never tasted Molson beer, you really should. It might not compare to some European brews, but on the North American scene it tops many large-scale brewed ales.

The Clock Tower beach is located just at the foot of the Clock Tower. It also extends along a marina on one side. On the other side and above it is a parking area which leads to the Clock Tower.The white Clock Tower was in the past centuries the beacon for all the ships intending to docs in what used to be the port of Montreal. Now that area is called Old Port but is no longer opened to commercial ships.

The Montreal’s Urban Beach opened its door to the public on June 16th, 2012. For 2 days, June 16 - 17, the entrance fee was waived to all the visitors. And that was the last time, unfortunately, when that area was open to anybody to freely walk in. 


In the inauguration speech it was claimed that that Montrealers have long demanded more access to St. Laurence river, and that the Port of Montreal authorities have now provided it. The statement was really ironic. I used to like to walk in the little park just at the very tip of the land below the Clock Tower. Now that park is gone, the trees which grew there are gone as well, replaced by stylish umbrellas. The area is no longer freely accessible to all the Montrealers, especially the less affluent ones.

As I was walking recently towards the Clock Tower, looking down at the strip of the beach to my left, three young ladies past me by. I overheard one woman’s  comment, “This is more like a beach club”. Yes, indeed, it does give that impression. Judging from the onlookers in the picture below, they might be of a similar opinion: they cannot enter this beautiful piece of land unless they pay.