# Montreal: map, what to do and when to go

Montreal is the largest French-speaking city in the Americas, with bagels before dawn, a mountain park, the old city and three months of festivals. French is the language of the street, and English is the second language of many residents.

Canonical: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/
Language: en. Extended author commentary and itinerary notes may remain in Portuguese. Dates below belong to individual sources; this is not live availability.

## Direct answer
- **Montreal: how do you get from the airport to downtown?** Express bus 747 reaches downtown in 45 to 70 minutes, at any time of day, and accepts the C$12.75 24-hour pass, bought at the machine in the arrivals hall.
- **Montreal: can you go to Quebec City and back in the same day?** Yes, but one night gets you much more: Quebec City is 250 km to the northeast, about 3 hours by car or 3 hours 15 minutes by VIA Rail train from Gare Centrale, with few departures a day.
- **Montreal: how much tax is added to the price tag?** 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.

## The old city, the port, and downtown
Start at 9am at Notre-Dame Basilica, on Rue Notre-Dame Ouest (about C$15): see the blue vault with gold stars and the Casavant organ before the tour groups arrive, around 11am.
- Notre-Dame Basilica
- Pointe-à-Callière and the Vieux-Port

## The mountain, the bagel, and the Plateau
At 8am, eat a hot sesame bagel at St-Viateur or Fairmount, in the Mile End, and have coffee at one of the roasters on Rue Saint-Viateur.
- Parc du Mont-Royal
- Marché Jean-Talon and Marché Atwater

## The Olympic east and the Expo islands
Take the green metro line to Pie-IX for the Botanical Garden, 75 ha open since 1931 with its Chinese and Japanese gardens, and for the Biodôme, inside the 1976 velodrome.
- Parc Jean-Drapeau
- Olympic Park and Montreal Tower
- Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
- Habitat 67 and the Lachine Canal

## Notre-Dame Basilica
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-basilica-notre-dame
Ville-Marie
Neo-Gothic, built between 1824 and 1829 by Irishman James O’Donnell, who converted to Catholicism so he could be buried there. The interior, by Victor Bourgeau (1872–1880), has a cobalt-blue vault with gold stars and a Casavant organ of about 7,000 pipes; entry about C$15.
Check access

## Saint Joseph’s Oratory of Mount Royal
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-oratorio-sao-jose-do-monte-real
Montreal · Up to half an hour
A 97 m-tall domed basilica, started by Brother André in 1904 as a wooden chapel and completed in 1967. Pilgrims still climb the 99 wooden steps at the center of the staircase on their knees; the lookout sits about 263 m above sea level, the highest accessible point in the city.
Check access

## Parc du Mont-Royal
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-parc-du-mont-royal
Montreal
Designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, the same designer as Central Park, and opened in 1876; from the Kondiaronk lookout you see the whole island and the river. The 31.4 m steel cross on top dates from 1924 and replaces the wooden one planted by Maisonneuve in 1643; on summer Sundays the tam-tams play by the Cartier monument.
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## Pointe-à-Callière and the Vieux-Port
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-pointe-a-calliere
Ville-Marie
The museum was built over the archaeological site of the 1642 founding and goes down into the Saint-Pierre River collector, a 19th-century tunnel you can walk through. Nearby, the wharf has the 1922 clock tower, raised in memory of sailors killed in the First World War, and the 60 m ferris wheel installed in 2017.
Check access

## Parc Jean-Drapeau
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-parc-jean-drapeau
Ville-Marie · Up to half an hour
The two Expo 67 islands, a few metro stops from downtown. Home to Buckminster Fuller’s Biosphère, a 76 m geodesic dome that lost its acrylic skin in a fire in 1976, the 4.361 km Circuit Gilles-Villeneuve, open to walkers and cyclists outside of events, and the casino set in the former France and Quebec pavilions.
Check access

## Espace pour la vie
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-espace-pour-la-vie
Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve
A group of four institutions in the east: the Botanical Garden, created in 1931 by Brother Marie-Victorin, with 75 ha and Chinese and Japanese gardens; the Biodôme, set inside the 1976 Olympic velodrome; plus the Insectarium and the Planetarium. In September and October the garden hosts the Jardins de Lumière lanterns at night.
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## Olympic Park and Montreal Tower
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-parque-olimpico
Montreal
Roger Taillibert’s complex for 1976, with the 165 m tower leaning at 45°, the tallest of its kind in the world, and a funicular that climbs its curved face. Replacing the stadium’s roof and technical ring is underway until 2027, with reopening planned for 2028; check first what’s open to the public.
Check access

## Montreal Museum of Fine Arts
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-museu-de-belas-artes-de-montreal
Montreal
Founded in 1860, Canada’s oldest museum, today spread over five pavilions linked under Rue Sherbrooke Ouest, with about 47,000 works, from ancient Egypt to Inuit and Quebec art. The permanent collection is free for those under 21.
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## Marché Jean-Talon and Marché Atwater
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-marche-jean-talon
Quebec
The two public markets from 1933 that still work as neighborhood supply, not as an attraction. Jean-Talon, in the Petite-Italie, is one of the largest open-air markets in North America; Atwater, with its art deco tower, sits on the edge of the Lachine Canal.
Check access

## Habitat 67 and the Lachine Canal
https://nilopelomundo.com/en/place/montreal/#g-lugar-habitat-67
Ville-Marie
Moshe Safdie’s housing complex for Expo 67 stacks 354 precast concrete boxes into 158 apartments, each with a rooftop terrace on the neighbor below; it’s best seen from the canal or by boat. From the Vieux-Port a bike path of about 14 km runs along the canal to Lake Saint-Louis, flat all year round.
Check access

**Montreal: how do you get from the airport to downtown?**
Express bus 747 reaches downtown in 45 to 70 minutes, at any time of day, and accepts the C$12.75 24-hour pass, bought at the machine in the arrivals hall.

**Montreal: can you go to Quebec City and back in the same day?**
Yes, but one night gets you much more: Quebec City is 250 km to the northeast, about 3 hours by car or 3 hours 15 minutes by VIA Rail train from Gare Centrale, with few departures a day.

**Montreal: how much tax is added to the price tag?**
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.

**Montreal: how do you start a conversation if I don't speak 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.

**Montreal: how safe is the city?**
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.


## In the Nilo app
- Plan these 2 days on the map: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/app/guide/montreal/?utm_source=llm&utm_medium=markdown&utm_content=door-itinerary
- Mark your hotel on the map: https://nilopelomundo.com/en/app/map/montreal/?utm_source=llm&utm_medium=markdown&utm_content=door-stay

## Full editorial guide (Portuguese)
https://nilopelomundo.com/llm/montreal.md