Going Underground In Montreal

They may be hitting the beaches in Australia (see previous blog), but in Montreal, everyone heads underground at this time of the year, because it is so amazingly, intensely cold outside. After a relatively balmy 33-degree high earlier this week, the temps are reported to reach a high of nine this weekend, and a low of four. And I don't care how hardy a hockey player you are, four is four. From there, it's all downhill. When I went last winter, I arrived to minus-30 degree temperatures, which was the coldest thing I've ever felt in my life, and that includes dates in college with philosophy majors.

Fortunately, there is the Montreal Underground, a 20-mile labyrinth of hallways and tunnels (make that heated hallways and tunnels) that connect downtown office buildings, hotels, shops, restaurants and the subway. Begun by I.M. Pei in 1952 when he designed the Place Ville Marie with an underground shopping center, the tunnels have grown and expanded, and provide an easy excuse to never have to go outside and have your nose frozen off. A reported half-million people of the 1.8 million population use the underground every day (the other 1.3 million are presumably in Florida).

The place to be during this pre-Christmas week is the Complex Guy Favreau, a soaring atrium with murals and other artwork that houses a shopping mall, movie theater, Hyatt hotel, YMCA and apartments and government buildings. Get a slice of Montreal sugar pie, visit the Museum of Contemporary Art, go ice-skating.

Just, for goodness sakes, don't go outside. It's freakin' freezing out there. Your nose, and all other parts of exposed flesh, will thank you.