Montreal: Old town, new experience

Our plane was the last to land; the airport closed minutes later because of the snow. My husband hailed a cab, which fishtailed through Montreal's Vieux Port, overshot our hotel, and had to back up a block; it was just too snowy, the streets too narrow, for the driver to turn around.

By the time we had grabbed our duffle bags and waded up the front stairs of the Auberge Bonaparte, my red knitted cap was sparkling white, and my feet were soaked.

I had not seen snow like this in a long time. It was old-fashioned snow, deep in the unplowed streets, giant flakes sailing past the big windows of our room. As I toweled my damp hair, I looked out at the tall stone buildings of the oldest neighborhood in Montreal. In one direction, I could see the towers of Basilique Notre-Dame, its top windows glowing blue. In the other direction, white lights danced in the sky down by the waterfront. Those lights were not typical. Those lights were the reason we had come.

We changed into dry boots and set out again, clattering down the inn's narrow staircase, tiptoeing past the ground-floor restaurant with its white tablecloths and well-dressed diners, and headed toward the glow.

We were in Montreal for Le Festival Montreal en Lumiere -- the Montreal High Lights Festival, a 10-day party in the dark of February, celebrating all things bright. The snow had fallen all day. We shuffled down to the quays of the Old Port, where, in daylight, scores of people skate on the frozen bay. Now, at night, a projector beamed light across the dark water onto the side of a warehouse hundreds of yards away. You could dance in front of the light and watch your shadow flicker and shimmy on the side of that distant warehouse.

On this Saturday night during a near blizzard down by the frozen waterfront, people lined up, waiting to dance.

We took our turn and then swam back through the snow, through those narrow streets, past white mounds that were buried cars, past tall old gas lamps, past somber stone buildings -- once centers of commerce and finance, now art galleries and restaurants -- to the Metro.

Downtown, busy Rue Ste. Catherine was transformed; one end had been blocked off with scaffolding draped in white cloth, and in that odd little dead end a whole world had sprung up.

Long white tents with plastic windows, warmed with space heaters, served gourmet meals in the snow. Children squealed with laughter as they caromed down a slide. Red and blue lights flashed above a dance stage where people whirled and dipped and shuffled and jived in their Sorels to music played by a DJ wearing a hat with earflaps. Round braziers dotted the street, glowing with charcoal fires for toasting marshmallows and warming up hands.

I stopped at a booth and bought marshmallows and a wooden skewer, and as I held my stick toward the flames, Chinese dragon dancers snaked past in full costume. Overhead, illuminated planets, as big and colorful as beach balls, bobbed on strings and lit up the snow-filled sky.

We had been to Montreal before, but we'd never experienced it like this -- a snowy night in a beautiful city, throngs of people bundled up and laughing in defiance of the dark and the cold.

Soaking wet, full of chocolate and marshmallows, we Metroed back to our luxurious red and gold room above the four-star restaurant. On another evening we would have dinner there, served by a courteous trilingual waiter, our white-clothed table adorned with a fragile orchid in a small glass vase. But not tonight. Tonight, as we walked past, we saw waiters removing the tablecloths, stacking dishes onto trolleys. A few couples lingered over coffee or wine.

In the morning, when we awoke, it was still snowing.