Montreal

The currency is the Canadian dollar, and the price on the tag never includes tax: at the register you add 5% federal GST and 9.975% provincial QST, almost 15% in total, and there has been no tourist refund since the federal program ended in 2007. At sit-down restaurants, also count the tip, which here is part of the price. 2026 price ranges: coffee C$3–5; sandwich or filled bagel C$8–14; lunch C$18–25; dinner with a glass of wine C$50–80; microbrewery draft beer C$8–10; mid-range hotel C$180–300 in July and August, C$130–200 between November and April, plus a 3.5% provincial lodging tax. Contactless cards are accepted almost everywhere, from food trucks to festival stalls, and cash is only needed at markets and some casse-croûtes. Wine and spirits are sold only in the state-run SAQ stores. Beer and everyday wine are available at dépanneurs and supermarkets until 11pm, and the legal drinking age is 18.

Montréal-Trudeau airport: 20 km west, express bus 747

Montréal-Trudeau Airport (YUL) is 20 km west of downtown, and getting out is simple. Express bus 747 reaches downtown in 45 to 70 minutes, at any hour of the day, and accepts the C$12.75 24-hour pass, bought at the machine on arrival. Taxi, Uber and Eva charge a similar fare, in the C$48–55 range. The REM branch to the airport was not yet in service as of September 2026, expected around 2027. VIA Rail trains leave from Gare Centrale for Quebec City, Ottawa and Toronto, and intercity buses depart from the rue Berri station, next to Berri-UQAM metro.

The metro has run on rubber tires since 1966 and smells like hot rubber

The metro has four lines and 68 stations, and it has run on rubber tires since October 14, 1966: it's quiet and smells of warm rubber. It runs from 5:30am to about 1am (1:30am on Saturdays), and each station was designed by a different architect: it's worth getting off at Champ-de-Mars, Namur and Berri-UQAM just to look. Buses, including night routes, round out the network, along with the REM, an automated light metro that opened in 2023 to the South Shore and was extended in 2025. ARTM fares for 2026 in zone A: single fare C$3.75, two fares C$7.00, 24 hours about C$12.75 and monthly C$110 since July 1, 2026. The old 10-fare ticket has been discontinued. The reloadable card costs about C$6. Bixi public bikes have more than 900 stations and have run year-round since 2023, with an unlock fee of about C$1.25 plus C$0.20 per minute. Downtown is flat and walkable, and if you drive, one local rule applies: no right turn on a red light anywhere on the island.

Montreal is one of the safest large cities in North America, with a homicide rate of around 1 per 100,000 residents a year, well below the Canadian average for cities its size. The crime most likely to affect a visitor is theft: bike theft, break-ins into cars parked with a bag in view, and pickpockets at packed festivals and on the orange metro line at rush hour. At night, the stretch of Rue Sainte-Catherine Est near Berri-UQAM and some RÉSO entrances gather people experiencing homelessness and visible drug use. The scene is uncomfortable but rarely dangerous; avoid arguments and don't film anyone. When the bars empty out, at 3am, in the Vieux-Port and on Boulevard Saint-Laurent, there are occasional late-night fights. The most real risk is seasonal and physical: icy sidewalks after a thaw and refreeze, falls on the spiral outdoor staircases, and blocks of ice and snow that crash down from eaves and cornices in the Plateau on sunny days in February and March. Walk away from the wall. Tap water is safe to drink across the island, healthcare for foreigners is expensive (get insurance), and the emergency number is 911.

Start in French

A “bonjour” before any question changes the tone of the whole conversation; if you don’t speak the language, “bonjour, do you speak English?” works in most downtown places. Complaining about having to speak French in Quebec is the fastest social mistake in the city.

Tip is part of the bill

At a table-service restaurant, 15% of the pre-tax amount is the minimum and 18–20% is expected; at a bar, about C$1 per drink. Taxis and hairdressers follow the same logic; coffee counters and fast food don’t.

Shoes stay at the door

In someone's home, take your shoes off at the door, winter and summer. With salt, sand and street slush nine months a year, the custom keeps the house clean.

Quebec French has its own norms and literature

Quebec French has its own standard, dictionary, literature, and four centuries of separate history. Treating it as a deviant version of Paris French ends conversations politely and permanently.

Don't turn right on red, even with an empty street

On the island of Montreal it’s illegal to turn right on red, even with the street empty: the only exception in the province. Pedestrians cross outside the crosswalk all the time, but the fine exists and gets enforced in campaigns.

In winter, respect the cleared sidewalk

People who shovel their own entrance don't like seeing snow tracked back onto it; and during snow removal, the cones and orange signs hung the night before mean the car will be towed at 7am. Walk on the side of the street where the salt has already been spread.

Rubber-soled boots and a hat that covers the ears

Underestimating winter. The cold here is nothing like southern Brazil's: without a knee-length waterproof coat, a hat that covers your ears, gloves and rubber-soled boots, −20 °C with wind will drive you off the street in ten minutes. The ice under the snow knocks down more people than the cold.

The real bill is 1.3 times what’s written

Adding up the menu price in your head. Nearly 15% tax gets added only at the register plus 15–20% tip at a restaurant: the real bill for a dinner is about 1.3 times what's printed on the menu, and that math usually comes too late.

Turning right on red is illegal

Renting a car to stay on the island. Parking is expensive and confusing, turning right on red is illegal, and in winter snow removal operations tow anyone who ignores the orange signs hung a day in advance.

Arriving or moving on July 1

Scheduling arrival, a move, or a cheap hotel for July 1, Quebec’s lease turnover day. Hotels get pricier and the central streets clog up with moving trucks.

Treating Montreal as a French city

Treating Montreal like a French city. The vocabulary (dépanneur, magasiner, char, tuque), the food, the Catholic heritage dismantled in the 1960s, and the winter created something else; and getting around only in English cuts out much of what you understand about the east side of the island.

Bonjour, ça va ?

Hello, how are you? The standard opener for any conversation, including business ones; just saying “bonjour” is already enough on entering any place

Bienvenue

You’re welcome: in Quebec this is how you answer “merci,” where in France you’d say “de rien”

Je vais au dépanneur

I’m going to the corner store. The “dep” is the convenience store on every block that sells beer until 11pm

C’est correct

It’s all good, no worries. Works as agreement, as an accepted apology, and as closing a subject

On se prend un cinq à sept ?

Want to grab a drink after work? Literally “a five to seven,” the local happy hour

Attache ta tuque

Hold on, here it comes: literally “tie down your hat,” said before something intense or fast

The island and the mountain

Montreal occupies the largest island of the Hochelaga archipelago, 50 km by 16 km and 483 km², bordered by the St. Lawrence River to the south and the Rivière des Prairies to the north, at the point where the Ottawa River flows in. In the middle of the island stands Mont Royal, 233 m, one of the Monteregian Hills: intrusive igneous rock that resisted glacial erosion and stayed standing while the plain around it was leveled.

The grid, turned 45 degrees

The city climbs from the port to the mountain in terraces, and the street grid is turned about 45° from true north: what locals call “north” is actually northwest, and Boulevard Saint-Laurent, “the Main,” splits addresses between east and west, with numbering starting from the river. The main streets run parallel to the St. Lawrence (Sherbrooke, Sainte-Catherine, Notre-Dame, Mont-Royal) and the cross streets climb, which makes the city easy to read on foot.

RÉSO: 33 km of underground city against the snow

Winter explains much of the layout: about 210 cm of snow a year justify the 33 km of corridors of the RÉSO, the underground city that links ten metro stations, train stations, universities and downtown malls without leaving the heated indoors, and also the spiral outdoor staircases of the Plateau, born of late-19th-century building codes that pushed stairs outside to free up interior space and reduce fire risk.

Spectacle on an industrial scale

Montreal exports live performance: circus, jazz and comedy. Cirque du Soleil, founded in 1984 by street performers from Baie-Saint-Paul, is headquartered in Saint-Michel, next to the École nationale de cirque and the TOHU venue, and turned contemporary circus into a Quebec export. The International Jazz Festival, created in 1980, takes over the Quartier des Spectacles with hundreds of concerts, most of them free and outdoors; Just for Laughs (Juste pour rire), founded in 1983, is the world's largest comedy festival and returned in 2025 under new owners after its 2024 cancellation. Place des Arts is home to the Orchestre symphonique de Montréal and the Opéra de Montréal, and the roughly 200,000 university students at McGill, the Université de Montréal, Concordia and UQAM make up the audience that keeps the city's small venues going.

Everything revolves around language

The city's literature and film revolve around language. Michel Tremblay put joual, the working-class French of the east side, on stage with Les Belles-Sœurs in 1968 and divided Quebec; Gabrielle Roy had already captured the working poverty of Saint-Henri in Bonheur d'occasion (1945); Mordecai Richler wrote about Jewish Montreal in the Mile End; and Dany Laferrière, who arrived from Haiti in 1976, was elected to the Académie française in 2013. In film, the National Film Board (Office national du film) invented much of Canadian documentary and animation, Denys Arcand won the Oscar for best foreign-language film with Les Invasions barbares (2003) and Xavier Dolan made his debut at 20. In music, the city gave the world Leonard Cohen, Arcade Fire, Godspeed You! Black Emperor and Grimes.

Hockey organizes the calendar

The sport that organizes the calendar is hockey. The Montreal Canadiens, founded in 1909, have 24 Stanley Cups, more than any other NHL team, and play at the Centre Bell in front of about 21,000 people; on game nights downtown bars fill up and the orange metro line is a crowd of red jerseys. In June the Canadian Grand Prix of Formula 1 has taken over Île Notre-Dame since 1978 and doubles hotel prices. CF Montréal plays soccer at Stade Saputo, and in summer the street doubles as cultural infrastructure: stretches of Sainte-Catherine, Mont-Royal, Saint-Denis, and Wellington close to cars, and the Mural festival covers the buildings of Boulevard Saint-Laurent in paint.

Bonheur d’occasion, by Gabrielle Roy (1945)

The novel that captured working-class Saint-Henri and Francophone poverty along the Lachine Canal during the Second World War. It won the Prix Fémina and explains the city before the Quiet Revolution better than any manual; in English, The Tin Flute.

Les Belles-Sœurs, by Michel Tremblay (1968)

The play that put joual, the popular French of Montreal’s east side, on stage and split Quebec in two. Fifteen women pasting a million trading stamps in a Plateau kitchen. It’s the key to understanding why language here is a political matter.

Jésus de Montréal, by Denys Arcand (1989)

A group of actors stages the Passion at Saint Joseph’s Oratory and the play spins out of control. The film travels through the city of the 1980s (empty churches, advertising, hospitals, the metro) and shows what was left of religion after Quebec secularized in one generation.