Do you need an Eiffel Tower?

Posted by Manuel on August 1st, 2011 - Follow me on Twitter and Google+

In Montreal we don't have an Eiffel Tower, but we have an old Orange Julep restaurant on a parking lot

We have been living in Montreal for 2 years and a half. When we left France most of our friends and family said they would visit us “shortly”. The fact is only my mother came after 6 months. It takes some time to people to realize that they can visit you. Most of the time they could come but crossing the Atlantic Ocean seems to be a giant step. So we spent the first year and half without hardly any visit. The good thing is that it has changed. We have got many friends and family members who have visited us for the last year.

After a couple of visits I designed a tourist circuit through the city. It really takes one day to visit the “attractions” in Montreal. The “one thing to do” is to climb the Mount Royal, this is the step one of my program which also includes the underground city and the old Montreal. This is my one-day program for visitors. After that, I like to make them discover the small things that make Montreal an enjoyable, unique (and sometime weird) city: the old industrial neighbourhoods, the incredible amount of wedding dress shops on rue St-Hubert, the micro-breweries, the Irish pubs, the diverse cultural communities, the multitude of summer festivals, the hyper-specialized friperies on St Laurent, etc…

And what I have noticed is that people don’t want to know about how the life is in the city. They don’t really care about the “small” stuff. They want an Eiffel Tower or an Empire State Building or a Golden Gate Bridge and they want to take a picture of it. So they are kind of disappointed when they visit Montreal because the Mount is a big hill, the underground city is a big mall and the old city is not old according to european standards. And it’s hard sometimes when we realize our friends don’t see the magic of our city.

I talked about it with my cousin who went in India a couple of years ago. He told me that the real travel was not to get to famous places, it was to figure out how to get there, buy a train ticket and share the everyday life of people.

So this is what we do. Instead of guiding our visitors, we let them wander in the city. They can discover by themselves, discover place we did not know about. The small places are better when you are not guided to them.

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In 2 weeks we are going in vacation in North Carolina. We have decided to drive over there (around 14 hours if you don’t stop). I am actually more excited about the driving part than the beach part. Because we intend to stop in small diners on the road. All the Fat Nancy’s, Sweet Sue’s…( and other Pataterie in Quebec) how can you get more authentic than that? (note to self: order salad and coffee)

I hope there is no Eiffel Tower in North Carolina, just authentic people and dinners. And I hope I can enjoy how they live over there.

Do you have a touristic totem in your city?  What are you looking for when you travel?

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If you liked this post, please consider retweeting it or google-plus-1-ing it.

If you are interested in travelling getting more than totems, I suggest you read The Panamericans and The Act of Travelling.

Cheers,

Manu

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  • http://theherohandbook.com Matt Langdon

    When I’ve shown people around at home in Victoria, Australia, there’s no architectural totem – it’s the wildlife.

    When I show people around Michigan, there’s very little they’re expecting, except a rotting Detroit.

    I look for two things when I’m traveling:

    1. The big things that I’ve read about in books or seen in movies or TV. It makes me feel connected when I can actually see them. And by big things, I mean big things to me. That could be a street from a childhood TV show or a suburb from a comic book.

    2. New small places. They might be streets, cafes, or parks.

    For whatever reason, I’ve never been a talker when traveling. Whenever I’ve got into conversations I’ve enjoyed them, but I never seek them out. Introvert, perhaps.

    • Anonymous

      Detroit was the first city I visited in the USA. I wanted see it because of all the genesis of electronic music. I thought it would be more “alive”…. Big surprise for my first day in the US! Actually the feelings I got from the empty buildings in Detroit was more interesting than the feeling of the crowded streets in NYC.

  • Joseph Post

    If you are interested in North Carolina style BBQ, check out Scott’s Famous Barbecue in Goldsboro (where I was born!).

    Where I am currently living (Warrensburg, MO) is the home of Old Drum and the phrase “man’s best friend,” which comes from a famous court case where the owner orated the “eulogy to the dog” and won.

    In a city, I am looking to meet new people and interact with them. In the wilderness I am disconnecting from modern technology and tuning into nature.

    • Anonymous

      Wilderness has always more to offer than a human made totem.
      I am a city boy, I would have a hard time living out of a city. And strangely I am always more satisfied by nature.
      I keep your BBQ place address. I’ll tell you if I go! Thanks!

  • Alysonearl

    So happy to see comments are back! Love it if you and your traveling companion drove through Lancaster. Lots of diners around here. And places to explore.

    In answer to your question, my traveling is purposefully off-season, non-tourist attractions. I prefer train travel to walkable destinations, then I accidentally on purpose get lost as soon as possible. For me, that’s the best way to get to know my way around and to find things I might never have seen otherwise.

    Using meals as the organizing factor, I seek out inexpensive, food-honoring restaurants and the local groceries. Along the way I walk through different neighborhoods looking at the ways people garden, decorate, keep their curtains open or closed. Walking to and from, figuring out the way streets connect, creating a mental map sprinkled with images, flavors, and sounds. That’s how I like to travel and to explore new places.

    • Anonymous

      I knew we were on the same page. I love getting lost (which is kind of hard as I must a gps probe connected to my brain… I always know the direction I have to take… one thing I am good at!)
      Montreal is a big enough so I can experience new neighbourhoods often. Getting lost in the wilderness is more fun though. Less people… more uncertainty…

  • Monique

    act of traveling sent me here – what a refreshing post. I love montreal (by the way) although I’ve never climbed up the mount royal, but I went a few years ago and visited the old places my mother worked and lived when she first moved to north america from europe (the old bank of canada and around mcgill university and the canadian center for architecture on rue baile which used to be some sort of catholic organization where she lived temporarily). today my style of travel is to check off fewer “eiffel towers’ . when people come to visit our small university town in northern california they love visiting our great walkable downtown or riding the miles and miles of bikepaths we have here., great post! – monique (from the blog, bringing travel home)

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  • Gildas Maurin

    Nantes, France, is the city I have been living in for 2,5 years now. Its Totem is surely castle of the Britanians Dudes but, I would say it’s not enough in itself to cross Atlantic ocean to see it! 
    The real City totem is rather its atmosphere, its rythm and the way of live of their inhabitans. In this way I join you Manu on your idea of being interested in ‘small’ things like…
    Having a drink in the sunday afternoon in a bar of the island of Nantes a place with no car and face to the river and sun beams at this time of the day.
    Going to the fresh market on Saturday morning the see the place crowded with people from many colors and smily faces and sharps comments about anythings. 
    To get this little things, in any places, you need time, a thing that the tourist is missing often! Good idea to let them wander!

    When I travel, I have an official good reason to get to the destination, for example the see the famous totem, but, as you wrote it, first the trip, (Road trip or Rail or Air trip or a mix of them) It’s a rare time when I can be lazy on a train or fly or be doing one thing at the wheel : drive patiently.
    Then abroad, I’m happy to meet by coincidence and talk with other people that I won’t never see again, I learn things from them. This is rare in my own country where people are afraid to and don’t need to talk to strangers or anyone they don’t know. 
     Gildas

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