Montréal is the most European city in North America, and it wears the description lightly. It is a French-speaking island in an English-speaking continent, a place where the cooking is serious, the festivals are constant, and the whole city seems to relax the moment the snow finally melts. The old town has the cobbles and grey stone of a French port; the rest is a sprawl of distinct neighbourhoods, each with its own character, knitted together by a superb metro and an outdoor culture that erupts every summer. It is bilingual, slightly bohemian, and entirely sure of itself — a city that takes pleasure seriously and is all the better for it.
Montreal is the most vibrant city we have visited. During the day there are places to go and see but in the evening, the jazz scene is amazing. Check out one of many jazz club bars in the city. We had a great time. If you’re a lover of Leonard Cohen and his music, if you look down from Mount Royal you can see the great man portrayed on a mural. Fitting tribute. Enough said.
A Little Background
The island of Montréal — Tiohtià:ke in Kanien’kéha (Mohawk) — has been a meeting place for thousands of years. When Jacques Cartier arrived in 1535 he found the St Lawrence Iroquoian village of Hochelaga, a settlement of some size beside the mountain. By the time French colonists returned to stay, the Iroquoians had dispersed amid war and disease, and the land was used by the Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk), Wendat, and Algonquin peoples.
The permanent settlement began in 1642, when a small group of French missionaries led by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve and the remarkable Jeanne Mance founded Ville-Marie, a Catholic mission dedicated to the Virgin Mary. It grew into the great fur-trading hub of New France, passed to British control in 1763, and became Canada’s largest city and industrial powerhouse through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Toronto eventually overtook it in size, but Montréal kept its cultural primacy and, after the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, its powerful French-Canadian identity. The result is the bilingual, distinctively Québécois city of today.
What to See and Do
Old Montréal (Vieux-Montréal) is the obvious starting point: cobbled streets, eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stone buildings, and the cafés and galleries that fill them. At its heart stands the Notre-Dame Basilica, completed in 1829, with an interior of deep blue, gold leaf, intricate carving, and a 7,000-pipe organ — one of the most beautiful church interiors in North America. There is an admission charge for sightseeing visits; the after-dark AURA light-and-sound show projected onto the interior is a spectacle in its own right. Nearby, the Pointe-à-Callière archaeology museum is built directly over the city’s birthplace and is the best place to grasp how deep the layers here go.
Mount Royal — the small mountain that gives the city its name — is its green heart, a park laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted of Central Park fame. The climb (or the easier path) to the lookout gives the definitive view over the city and the river; 2026 marks the park’s 150th anniversary. Down in the city, the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile End neighbourhoods are the places to wander for cafés, murals, and the rivalry between the city’s two legendary bagel bakeries; Jean-Talon Market in the north is one of the great food markets of the continent. Montréal is also a festival city to its core — the International Jazz Festival, Just for Laughs, and a packed summer calendar mean there is almost always something happening if you visit between June and September.
Getting There
Montréal-Trudeau International Airport is well connected internationally and sits about 20 minutes from downtown; a new REM light-rail line links it directly to the centre. The city’s Métro is clean, fast, and the easiest way to get around, supplemented by an extensive bus network and a genuinely usable bike-share scheme in the warmer months. Montréal is also a stop on VIA Rail’s busy Québec City–Windsor corridor, making train travel to Toronto, Ottawa, and Québec City straightforward.
Weather
Montréal has a sharp four-season climate. Summers (June–August) are warm, lively, and the best time to visit, with the whole city outdoors. Autumn is crisp and lovely. Winters are long, cold, and very snowy — atmospheric, but serious; the city retreats partly into its famous Underground City, a network of climate-controlled passages linking metro stations, malls, and offices. Aim for late spring through early autumn unless you are coming for winter sports or the festive season.
The Bottom Line
Mid-range hotels run roughly CAD$180–320 a night, more during major festivals. Two to three days lets you cover the old town, the mountain, and a couple of neighbourhoods with time to eat well — which, in Montréal, is the point. Of all Canada’s cities this is the one that most rewards simply wandering, eating, and letting the day unfold.