Highlights of Montreal, Canada – A Taste of Europe in North America

Montreal likes to bill itself as having the best aspects of North America mixed with the best aspects of Europe, and in that respect, it’s not far wrong. There are few cities in the world that have Montreal’s mixture of buzz and vitality without feeling too intense and overbearing. It is a city that feels makes you fancy a drink, not need a drink, if that makes sense.

View of the old - and new - rooftops and tree-lined streets of Old Montreal

Old Montreal

In most other cities, the Old Montreal area that contains most of the heritage buildings and the heavily spruced-up port would be enough to pull in the visitors. Indeed, this is where many passing through on cruises will often stay. There’s nothing wrong with that – parts of Old Montreal are gloriously atmospheric. A stroll down rue Saint-Paul will take you over cobbled stones and past numerous art galleries and boutiques before the bars and souvenir shops take over.

Interior of Gothic Revival-style Notre Dame Basilica, Montreal, a National Historic Site of Canada

The Notre Dame basilica is a magnificent beast too, while the waterfront makeover has worked wonders. Ferries and boat tours seem to be departing every few minutes, the parkland has been primped and given that this is Montreal, there’s always likely to be some festival or other going on as you walk by.

During the summer months, you may well find a rather large tent at the water’s edge. Montreal is the home of Cirque du Soleil, and as a general rule there’s a show running in the big top on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River when the winter blues have been well and truly banished.

Montreal Port with its sleek boats and famous Cirque du Soleil tent

Pointe-A-Calliere

There are also a couple of really good museums in Old Montreal. Pointe-A-Calliere is Montreal’s museum of archaeology and history, a topic that can often be terrifyingly dull. The museum is built on what is regarded as Montreal’s birthplace, where a long-disappeared river joined the Saint Lawrence. The opening presentation here is hugely impressive, with projections beamed onto 270 degrees worth of screen and wall, and a fair bit on to the excavated foundations left on display below the theatre.

The tale of Montreal’s history is told, from the vast sea that covered Quebec 11 to 12,000 years ago. When the waters of that sea retreated, Montreal Island was created. The presentation also goes into the early encounters between the native Iroquois people and early settlers before swooshing through to Montreal’s early days as Canada’s financial and exploration hub, then the present era.

After that, you get to wander through the foundations of the former Royal Insurance building, and pretty much every display manages to be fascinating. I’d never realized how important Montreal was in the expansion of North America before – but it was the main French city, and the likes of St Louis and New Orleans were founded by expeditions departing from here.

Inside Montreal's Pointe-a-Carriere museum of archaeology and history

Centre des Sciences

The Centre des Sciences is more concerned with physics than history, but the current Indiana Jones exhibition attempts to make archaeology glam. It gets the trade-off between fun and learning just about right. In the former camp, you’re given a little screen that you can scan over special posts as part of a treasure hunt. It sends you hunting around the exhibition for information that you may have missed in order to get the virtual fragments that make up your precious reward.

That’s the spoonful of sugar – the medicine is little sub-displays on how archaeology works, and how we’ve learned about other cultures through exploration, careful digging and linguistic code breaking. It’s all surprisingly intriguing – it’s far more about the process and techniques than dusty artefacts displayed in glass cases.

For the Indy geek (i.e. me), however, the joy is in seeing all the costumes and props from the films, and learning about little insider secrets from the filming process. The infamous snake pit scene? They bred 300 snakes in advance, then realized that there weren’t enough to cover the floor, so an extra 7,000 had to be found at the last minute.

The rest of the Centre Des Sciences is a button-pushing joy for kids – and big kids – alike. Different areas concentrate on different things – the corridors are lined with numerous inventions and displays on the invention process, from need to marketing. Inside, you get to learn about the technology of the future, from thought-powered devices to artificial hearts.

Montreal by Bike

But there is far more to the city than just Old Montreal, and one way to get a good overview of it is to take a cycling tour. Beginning in the morning, Viator’s Montreal Half-Day Bike Tour starts in Old Montreal before heading past the University of Quebec, through the Latin Quarter and up to the ever fashionable Plateau Mont-Royal.

A stop on the Montreal Half-Day Bike Tour in one of the city's beautiful parks

It takes in a couple of the city’s most majestic parks, stops for bagels at the Saint-Viateur bakery – where even New Yorkers admit the bagels cannot be beaten – and down a few of the streets crammed with indie fashion stores, bars and cafés that give Montreal its effervescent character.

Most interesting, however, are the stops in less obvious spots like the back lanes that are now being lined with plants and gardens and outside the old-school houses that still have outdoor stairways. The reason they’re there, even in a city which has bitterly cold winters? It’s a numbers game. When houses were built, large families would live inside each one – and outdoor staircases created extra space inside. The bonus is that, once the tour has finished, you can keep the bike for the rest of the day to explore other parts of the city.

Where to Stay in Montreal

Montreal has a number of good accommodation options, including small, intimate, stylish hotels that can be difficult to find elsewhere in North America. If you’re staying in Old Montreal, good examples of this are the Hotel Nelligan and Le Petit.

- David Whitley

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