"MONTRÉAL - our entry to Canada" a Montreal Travel Page by tiabunna

We flew direct to Montréal from Paris. We were looking forward to our visit, but arrived feeling jetlagged and (I confess) a little irritable from putting up with over-zealous security at both ends of our flight. Our mood was not helped when we found the accommodation we’d booked through the internet was the “lemon” of our entire trip! It wasn’t a promising start, but we found much that was pleasant in Montréal, and had an enjoyable stay regardless.

I suspect that one’s perspective of Montréal (or anywhere, for that matter?) may also be coloured by the starting point. Enthusiastic comments from friends probably had raised our expectations to unreasonable levels, with advice about how French (even “Parisian”) it is. French influenced it may be: “Parisian” it certainly is not, as is particularly obvious when stepping directly from a flight out of Paris and making the inevitable (if unreasonable) mental comparisons! So let’s be clear, this is a modern North American city which happens to have some French background and French as its main language.

Our visit was in the northern summer and, during our stay, the weather became quite warm (over 30 degrees). That is anything but typical for this city, which is bitterly cold for much of the year – and accordingly has been built for that climate. I’m not sure that I’d wish to have a lengthy experience of the winter conditions, but I wouldn’t mind another visit (preferably during the city’s famous Jazz Festival) to have time to visit more of the many museums and galleries.