Travel has a way of stretching the mind. The stretch comes not from travel's immediate rewards, the inevitable myriad new sights, smells and sounds, but with experiencing firsthand how others do differently what we believed to be the right and only way. - Cranshaw, Ralph
To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive. -- Robert Louis Stevenson
Introduction
Montreal is a vivaciously vibrant, world-class city with an Old World, European charm with a neo-modern look. It has a lot to offer to people of all ages and interests. It has great restaurants, museums, art galleries and entertainment and place of natural interests; you name it and you can see them. It is also the most bilingual city in North America, may be in the world for that matter.
Montreal is also a location of the world class universities of McGill and Université de Montréal , Concordia et al. You can see innumerous students when you take a stroll along the Rue St.Catherine.
Montreal is also home to many interesting festivals, including an International Jazz Festival and World Film Festival, among others. It also has it’s own Mardi-Gras ball and a festival of light during winter.
How many of us know that Montreal is home to well-known names such as the great singer Céline Dion, William Shatner of Star Trek fame, hockey greats Patrick Roy of Colorado Avalanche, jazz legend Oscar Peterson, actress Geneviève Bujold, poet and singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and writers Saul Bellow, Mordecai Richler and Mavis Gallant, to name a few.
Montreal also houses a lot of sports teams and events: hockey’s Montréal Canadiens; baseball’s Montréal Expos; the Formula One Grand Prix (One of Schumi’s favorite grounds. I will try to watch it this year)
On the same note a Montréaler will tell you that this city's charm can wear thin when the temperature drops to -40 Celsius with wind chill. I had an opportunity to see –46 with wind-chill. Believe me, my next stop is Alaska, Antartica or Godthab (Nuuk) in Greenland!.
Montreal restaurants have plenty of great cuisines. Montreal is also famous for a dish called ’poutine’ – it looks almost as delicious as it sounds. Try it if you have a chance!
Montréalers also hosts the annual Pothole Festival, which sometimes lasts from March through November. Roads in some parts of the city have been known to wear off(due to the weather, of course!) so much that there are contests to find the city’s principal potholes - where Montréalers regularly lose mufflers, hubcaps, suspensions, money, happiness and their tempers.
Montreal was also home of the one of the most costly Olympic games in history and Montrealers find the tourist sites somewhat painful: the Olympic Stadium. Known locally as The Big ’O’ (Owe), Montréal taxpayers are still paying for the outrageously over-budget monstrosity nearly three decades after it was built for the 1976 Olympic Games.
This city’s bilingualism often translates into another language altogether – Canadiens call it ’’franglais’’. This is a mixture of English and French, it can result in such phrases as ’’give me your coordinates’’ (meaning contact information, an unofficial translation of coordonnées (Address)) or ’’I’ll take the metro (subway) to the dépanneur (convenience store), I will drop at the guichet before then’’ (ATM).
Tourist Attractions
Mont Royal Park is great and you are in for a great treat. You can have gorgeous views of the Montreal City as a whole, the beautiful harbor, gracious St. Lawrence River and all.
St.Joseph's Oratory is an exceptional piece of architecture. It's setup amidst the Mont Royal is simply awesome. It gives you the view of North and west side of Montreal in a stunning way. The basilica and the prayer room inside St.Joseph's is stunning. So is the museum. A great piece of architecture it is!
Old Montreal
Old Montreal is an exceptional part of Montreal. You have fun hobbling along the narrow cobblestone streets and window-shopping in the art boutiques and the clothing stores, if you have a very thick wallet. You see the entire history of Montreal preserved for you. It is also a nice place with too many fancy restaurants to test your taste buds. The waterfront and the neo gothic structure are simply excellent. Do not forget to take a horse-chariot ride whilst in this area.
Trivia:::Incidentally Montreal is the 4th biggest city to be discovered/established in North America. Quebec City is the first, and then comes Boston and New York City.
Notre Dame Basilica is a treat to watch, especially, if you watch the light show in the night. Albeit being from a different faith, I could appreciate the beautiful architecture of this Basilica. This is a matter of pride for many of the Montrealers. This is so as couple of Saints patronized this basilica and has tremendous history associated with it.
Olympic Stadium (1976) and Olympic Tower were also excellent. I was awed by the grandeur of the large stadium for its time and felt why it was a big Owe to the citizens. The Tower was an experience too.
Then you have Biodome where you have multiple zones of the world embedded under a single roof. It was nice to see Penguins and lemurs and sharks and parrots in a single place.
The Botanical Gardens is a treat to watch too. We were fortunate enough to see a butterfly show which was gorgeous and was worth every minute of our few hours of wait. We could see almost all types of butterflies in the world in a span of 3 hours. So was the Insectarium.
Other places of interest include
Underground Shopping City (Over six miles long subway connecting multiple complexes, similar to skyway in Minneapolis, US)
Montreal harbor
Shopping District in Centre-Ville (Rue St.Catherine )
Famous Churches and gothic architecture
Montreal Museums
China Town
Centre Bell and
Montreal Subway, touted by many as one the finest in the world
Accommodation and Food
Montreal has innumerous places to stay, for people from all walks of life. You can stay in a $500 CDN stay in Governor or Queen Elizabeth or stay for $80 CDN at days-inn etc
All restaurants are europeanesque in style, more or less and some of them are very famous world-wide. Some people travel to Montreal for just having great food!
Only one thing you may want to be concerned is the GST & PST, which works out to be 15.5 percent for everything you purchase. Taxi/Cab service is also great and you have a running meter for any wait.
Summary and Conclusion
All in all, Montreal is a great place to be in (especially in Summer) and an OK (goes to bad in winter) city to live in. It is a great walking city and is wonderful in many ways
I Hope you liked my review. Do RRC when time permits.
Kalil
Through travel I first became aware of the outside world; it was through travel that I found my own introspective way into becoming a part of it. – Eudorea Welty
Understanding does not cure evil, but it is a definite help, inasmuch as one can cope with a comprehensible darkness. - Carl Jung
