Canada City Guide
Montreal (Montréal) is unique in North America, blending a brash New World urbanity with the romantic charm of its European-flavoured historic districts and a Gallic sense of joie de vivre evident in the city’s many  pavement cafés and dynamic nightlife. Although its downtown skyscrapers are a testament to the economic clout of Canada’s second largest city, visitors are more likely to be drawn by the promise of a horse-drawn calèche ride along the cobbled streets of Old Montreal near the St Lawrence River or around Mount Royal, the city’s landmark.
Situated on an island, 50km by 16km (31 by 10 miles), sandwiched between the rivière des Prairies and the St Lawrence River, the recent amalgamation of the city and its suburbs means that Montreal’s boundaries now extend to the shoreline. When Jacques Cartier first ‘discovered’ the island in 1535, it was already inhabited – the Iroquois village of Hochelaga stood at the foot of Mount Royal. By the time Paul de Chomedey, the Sieur de Maisonneuve, arrived in May 1642 to found Ville-Marie, the first permanent European settlement (which was later renamed Montreal, after the French for the local mountain – Mont Royal), Hochelaga had been abandoned. The cross on the top of Mount Royal, which is visible from much of the city, marks the spot where de Maisonneuve planted a wooden cross in thanks for the city being spared from flooding during its first winter.
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