Montreal
It feels like a long time since my last update, especially considering I am writing this piece on the last day of the cross-Canada trip. I usually journal on a train or plane during transit between cities, but I took the bus from Montreal to Quebec City, so my update got delayed. Now I am on a twelve-hour train ride from Quebec City to Toronto, finally with enough time to write about my stay in La Belle Province.
La Belle Province is The Beautiful Province in French.
I have actually spent more time in the province of Quebec than in all the other Canadian cities I have visited so far combined.
It makes the delay more significant, isn’t it?
On my very first day in Montreal, while walking on Mont Royal with a girl from Toronto I met on a walking tour, she asked me which city I liked better: Ottawa or Montreal? I could not give a definitive answer back then, but the winner is very clear to me now. Montreal is unique. Its primary language is French, it hosts tons of summer festivals, it is heavily influenced by French Catholic history, and it is packed with cultural diversity.
I started my exploration with a free walking tour.
You need to tip at the end depending on your experience.
The local guide pointed out niche spots tourists usually miss and gave great restaurant recommendations. Montreal is fantastic for foodie. Beyond smoked meat and bagels, waves of immigrants have formed unique neighborhoods with Chinese, Italian, Turkish, Middle Eastern, and Portuguese cuisines.
As one of the oldest European settlements in Canada, Montreal was founded to spread Catholicism to indigenous people, leaving behind beautiful 19th-century European architecture. You see intricate, imposing buildings and narrow cobblestone streets everywhere around Old Montreal. However, the shops in Old Montreal are total tourist traps—twelve dollars for a Ben & Jerry’s ice cream! I avoided eating in that area because there is so much delicious food elsewhere in the city. I had Roman-style pizza and granita in Little Italy. I had Portuguese grilled chicken and nata. They are along the famous Saint-Laurent Boulevard, also called The Main, which historically divides Montreal into Anglaphone in the west and Frencophone in the east.
Beyond the buildings, street art like murals, sculptures, and paintings are everywhere. I also stopped by the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, which is free for those under twenty-five. I only had two hours, which barely scratched the surface of their massive collection.
History and nature blend together seamlessly here. The city’s name comes from Mont Royal, named by Jacques Cartier. Its peak features a chalet and a belvedere overlooking downtown and the St. Lawrence River. Nearby, the historic Lachine Canal—built because river rapids made shipping further inland too dangerous—is no longer used for commercial transport, but its surrounding parks and promenade make it a peaceful escape from the busy city. I enjoyed walking along the canal for hours after dinner to push down the bad feeling of eating another poutine.
Then came Osheaga, the event I was most excited about. It’s the first time I attended a music festival in person. I was very looking forward to seeing the artists I like and watching them playing live music. I had watched the Coachella livestream two years in a row, but attending a real outdoor music festival turned out to be a total mess. The crowd was massive, food was overpriced, and the rain made everything worse. The baggage policy was bizarre, allowing large transparent bags but only small opaque ones. To get near the front row instead of watching a screen, I had to stand in the audience zone five hours early with barely enough room to breathe, no access to toilets, and cigarette and vape smoke everywhere. I saw people fainting and getting carried away constantly. Singing along live with a massive crowd was fun, but standing there squeezed in the rain made me miss the comfort of watching a live stream from a chair.
On my last day, I caught up with a middle school friend studying at McGill University. We rode road bikes on the Formula 1 track on Parc Jean-Drapeau's Île Notre-Dame, which was a great way to wrap up my time in the city.
