Whenever chess players visit a new city the first thing they do is look for other chess players rather than the tourist sites!
I visited the charming city of Montreal, Canada in August 2017 and this is exactly what I did!.
Montreal which was known as Ville-Marie or “City of Mary” is the second most populous city in Canada and is also the second-largest primarily French-speaking city in the world, after Paris.
The first place where I saw chess being played was along St Catherine Street (Place des Festivals in Quartier des Spectacles) where they had some garden size chess sets and a few normal size chess sets.
I had some more time and managed to find a proper chess club called “Café Equitable” or “Café Pi” (http://www.cafepi.ca/) which was a cafe located at 4127 St Laurent Blvd.
Café Equitable was a busy place with chess players and some backgammon players.
There was a small library to browse through in some comfy sofas.
I have attached some photos of interesting sites from Montreal.
I visited the Notre-Dame Basilica which was the most fascinating place for me.
This is what Wikipedia has to say about the Notre-Dame Basillica – “Built in the Gothic Revival style, the church is highly decorated. The vaults are coloured deep blue and decorated with golden stars, and the rest of the sanctuary is decorated in blues, azures, reds, purples, silver, and gold. It is filled with hundreds of intricate wooden carvings and several religious statues. Unusual for a church, the stained glass windows along the walls of the sanctuary do not depict biblical scenes, but rather scenes from the religious history of Montreal. It also has a Casavant Freres Pipe Organ, dated 1891, which comprises four keyboards, 92 stops using electropneumatic action and an adjustable combination system, 7000 individual pipes and a pedal board”
Montreal is not just chess but has
