Montréal

Montréal is an island in the St. Lawrence with a mountain in the middle of it — Mont Royal, 233 metres, the wooded hill Olmsted turned into a park and the city turned into its compass and its lookout. Founded in 1642 as a mission called Ville-Marie, it is the largest French-speaking city in the Americas and lives its two languages with a shrug and a 'Bonjour-Hi'; it lives its two seasons less casually — twenty below in January, with a whole city built underground to survive it, and a summer of terrasses and festivals so dense that the streets are closed for weeks at a time.

The traveller walks the cobbles of Vieux-Montréal to the Basilica of Notre-Dame and the old port; climbs the mountain by the stairs from the Plateau, past the outdoor staircases and the murals, to the lookout over the towers and the river; queues at a Mile End bagel bakery, where the ovens have not gone out since the fifties, and at Schwartz's for smoked meat on the Main; shops the Marché Jean-Talon in Little Italy; and crosses to Île Sainte-Hélène for the Biosphère of Expo 67 — before, in season, giving a night to the Jazz Festival or the Formula 1 weekend, and in March, a Sunday to a sugar shack in the country.

The Guide's practical counsel: French first is a courtesy that opens every door, and English works everywhere after it; the underground city — thirty-two kilometres of passages, shops and metro — is a real map for a real winter, so learn its entrances; the Métro runs on rubber tyres and is quiet and quick; poutine is a serious dish, not a dare, and La Banquise serves it at all hours; and July's festival calendar books hotels months out — plan around it, or plan for it.