One foot in Europe, one in America.
Montreal was founded in 1642 on an island in the St. Lawrence, as Ville-Marie, a French mission at the foot of Mount Royal. A fur-trading post, then Canada's great port and industrial capital in the 19th century, it came under the British crown in 1763 without ever ceasing to speak French. That double heritage is what makes it unique: a North American metropolis, skyscrapers and all, where people live, eat and talk the French way.
What I loved is that mix everywhere: Old Montreal with its cobbled streets and grey stone facades, Mary Queen of the World Cathedral squeezed between two towers, the 1976 Olympic Stadium and its leaning tower, the outdoor spiral staircases of the residential neighbourhoods. And a huge art scene: the MAC, the monumental murals of the Plateau and downtown, the festivals that take over the streets all summer. You feel the energy of a big American city with the ease of a European one.
