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I was born and raised in Montreal and it is rightfully a hot tourist destination — it has great food, lovely views, a fun party scene, and is easy to get to. So I thought I’d put together a post on what to see, do, and eat, in the city, with additional notes to follow for fellow celiacs who need to be a bit more careful about what they eat.
I hope you enjoy my city!
An Opinionated Guide to Montreal
Montreal from atop Mount Royal
What To Do in Montreal
Much of the city’s activities are centred around the downtown core, now linked not only by subway but via Bixi Bikes as well.
Montreal: City of Festivals
Montreal is well-known for its many festivals, and growing up my family would trundle down to the downtown core to watch jazz in the summer, right in the middle of the streets. When I tell people to visit Montreal, I implore them to time it for the city’s most famous festival, the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal. Streets are closed off with hundreds of jazz shows, free and paid, taking over the spirit of the downtown core. A new free street art festival MURAL has been making waves in the summer. It celebrates the creativity of urban art as it links up with music, dance, film, and street installations during the festival’s length.
Francofolies festival in Montreal
For more festivals, including the Just for Laughs Comedy Festival, and the Montreal World Film Festival, a summer series of fireworks shows, and the winter extravaganza, “IglooFest”, please see the Montreal Tourism Board’s festival page. To list them all out here would take up this entire post, but I wanted to highlight a few as it’s definitely a highlight of the city.
Also note that Montreal Museum Day happens once per year, where the city’s full roster of museums are free to enter. For 2016, it is May 29.
Winter Activities
Despite the fact that my eyelashes often froze together in the winter months, Montreal in the winter is not all ice and cold. The city has an infectious spirit and an ingenious tendency to ignore the weather in favour of fun. With over 26km of underground passageways (and art!), even those who want to avoid the cold can find something to do around town. I wanted to post some of the winter highlights if you visit Montreal during its subzero months.
Where to Eat in Montreal
Montreal is known for a wide range of gastronomic delights, and you’ll never run out of fun places to eat. Every summer when I return to visit my family, I’m excited to try the new restaurants that have sprung up in my absence. The city’s contemporary chefs focus on farm-to-table foods from Quebec, with an emphasis on seasonal ingredients and a deep understanding of flavors. Ethnic food options abound, and I grew up on a steady diet of not simply local food but also Ethiopian and Indian and Vietnamese fare.
Pad thai at Cuisine de Bangkok
The bottom line: Come visit. You won’t regret it – though you might come away a few pounds heavier.
Best Books to Read about Montreal
Pre-trip reading always makes your time in a new place more interesting. Many books are set in Montreal, and reading them always makes me envision a wander around my city, reliving the characters in my mind.
The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz, by Mordecai Richler. Richler’s great wit and wry commentary on being an immigrant in Montreal made his books a popular requirement for schools as I was growing up, and this book remains one of his classics. The Guardian also has a good roundup of the places still standing in town that are featured in his books, in their “Mordecai Richler’s Montreal.” The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz is part coming-of-age story, part family sitcom, and wholly enjoyable. I’ve read it many times and keep a copy at my parents’ place for my visits.
This Island in Time: Remarkable Tales from Montreal’s Past, by John Kalbfleisch. This book has no reviews on Amazon (I should get on that), but it is a fascinating tome about the crazy spies, royal tourists, priests, fur trappers, and more that made up the foundation of what is present-day Montreal. Engaging book, and highly recommended if you want an understanding of the city’s short but busy history.
The Tin Flute, by Gabrielle Roy. Set in the 1940s, the book follows one woman as she grows up within the slums of Montreal, during a time of war, poverty, and social stratification. A really interesting book that was originally written in French and then translated into English.
The Favourite Game, by Leonard Cohen. Many know Cohen for his songwriting, not writing, but this semi-autobiographical book follows a man named Lawrence Breavman as he grows up in Montreal.
Sacré Blues: An Unsentimental Journey Through Quebec, by Taras Grescoe. I first read Taras via his excellent The Devil’s Picnic, a book about why places ban certain foods or activities. In Blues, explores the Quebec of the early 2000s, from a referendum issue to separate from Canada to fears about assimilation within an English-speaking country, to sense of humor and its relationship with France. Entertaining and an insight into some of what makes Quebec so different.
Balconville, by David. The bilingual play follows English and French-Canadian characters of Montreal’s working class, living in an area of town called “Balconville” because of the many balconies that line the buildings. A classic for us who grew up there, but great that it is available now in Kindle format to give an insight into the urban areas that founded the Montreal that we know today.
The History of Montreal: The Story of Great North American City, by Paul-Andre Linteau, translated from the French by Peter McCambridge. This book covers more than the “This Island in Time”, opting to start in prehistory and zoom all the way to the 21st century. One of the few long history books of Montreal in English, it’s a good primer of influences from the rest of the world and the city’s confluence of cultures.
I hope this guide makes your time in my hometown more interesting and delicious!
-Jodi
Source: legalnomads.com