Inside Montreal, journalist Louis-Philippe Messier travels mostly on the run, his office in his backpack, on the lookout for fascinating subjects and people. He speaks to everyone and is interested in all walks of life in this urban chronicle.
It's Montreal's most incredible potential "tourist attraction" that no visitor has yet had access to: the lantern that tops the top of the Oratory's large green dome from which you can even watch our American neighbors !
This observatory stands 239 meters above sea level, about 50 meters higher than Place Ville Marie.
Thanks to gigantic modernization works, the impressive church will finally make this place available to the public.
"We are aiming for 2025 for the opening," says Céline Barbeau, the Oratory's director of communications.
Escalators and elevators will make the journey less complicated and less strenuous than it was for me.
“An elevator will go up to the dome level, but the very last part of the climb will be by stairs,” explains Louis Prévost, the director of material resources.
Dizzy
Mr. Prévost was kind enough to guide me through the maze of old staircases in the glow of stained glass windows and among a staggering amount of cobwebs.
These vertiginous staircases, totaling 401 steps, provide access to the top of the concrete dome which, seen from the inside, especially from the top, looks like a giant egg.
Under the ovoid ceiling, the massive wooden structure, where the last steps leading to the observatory stand, is particularly picturesque.
Incredible to think that these magnificent staircases have been there for as long as the Oratory, but that there has never been any question until now of letting the public access them...
"It was not initially designed to be publicly accessible, but it's an old dream that our work will realize," says Mr. Prévost.
After a few hundred steps, we arrive in front of a wooden scaffolding, with trapdoors, the use of which I do not understand.
"These hatches allow you to open the oculus above the altar and to take a look from above on the church," says Mr. Prévost.
By a chimney effect, the hot air of the place rushes into the inter-dome.
Vertigo
Not prone to vertigo, when I looked into the oculus to contemplate the church below, I still felt my head spin and my limbs tense.
"A lot of people don't manage to make it to the observatory because their vertigo is too strong," warns Mr. Prévost.
Perched in the observatory at nearly a quarter of a kilometer above sea level, if the visibility is good, you can see the Lac des Deux-Montagnes, a large American mountain, probably Lyon Mountain between Plattsburgh and Malone, the Laurentians, the Montérégiennes .
The large ball of the orange Julep catches the eye.
Immediately below are the pretty Olympian homes of Westmount, next to the Oratory.
If the Oratory is already the most visited tourist spot in Montreal, the opening of this observatory higher than the others could further consolidate this position.