Beautiful City. Review on Montreal

I spent a bit of time in Montreal and the longer I was there, the more I loved it. Unless you really like the snow, or you are getting the cheaper flights (which was why I was there in the winter!) it is much more pleasant in the summer when they have lots of festivals on, most notably the jazz festival in July, and the Comedy festival.

It is predominantly Francophone (60% francophone 40% anglophone and the second largest French-speaking city in the world after Paris as I kept being told!) but English is so widely spoken that it is considered a bilingual city, unofficially, but basic greetings in French make a lot of difference, as the Quebecois are very proud of their different culture.

The changes in the Quebec law in the last twenty years have meant that all public signs and shop signs have to be 'predominantly' in French. This has caused no ends of anxiety for Anglophones, but the purpose was to preserve the 'differentness' of the province of Quebec and it is certainly very obvious when you are travelling from other parts of North America.

The snow tends to come in late September and stays until May, although this is a generalisation! It does, though, without doubt, get incredibly cold and snowy throughout the winter months. When the Spring comes, (and remember it comes a bit later than it would in the UK), it comes with a vengence, and their summers are warmer. They do have large shopping malls underground heated, and I quote, to 'pleasant springtime temperatures'. There are networks of tunnels which connect these malls, so if you take the Metro system in (which is remarkably pleasant, easy and cheap to use), you have no need to surface in the winter months!

As for particular attractions, I particularly liked the Biodome eco-zoo which is by the Olympic Stadium and has all sorts of cute animals (but with an eco-friendly theme.. no small cages etc). It is actually the converted Velodrome from the Olympics and is divided into sections where the animals can roam more or less freely (apart from the more dangerous species) . I managed to coincide my visit with a troupe of hundreds of local schoolchildren. But this wasn't really a problem.. in the positive side, I did get to see a beaver building it's dam.. possibly the highlight of my visit.. (I never claimed to be terribly culturally astute!).

I didn't really do the cultural heritage, but there are some great galleries and museums, particularly by the harbour area in the Old City. The Botanical gardens are the second biggest in the world (after Kew Gdns) but I didn't see it at it's best because it was under snow when I was there!

As for the nightlife, I found some very 'interesting' places to hang out. It seems some places were definitely 'anglophone' and others definitely 'francophone'. Although there is a lot of bantering (some of it quite cruel) between these sections of the Canadian population, they don't seem to mind so much you not speaking French if you're 'foreign'. I spent most almost all of my time in the Francophone part of the city, because that's where I was staying, the clubs I found in the Old City, were a mix of lively clubs, similar to European style (but less techno!!) or traditional 'pub' type places with lots of people shouting loudly over people playing traditional french-canadian folk-type songs, where you wouldn't hear a word of English!

There are, as well, the ubiquitous Irish-theme pubs,if you really really have to.

And another thing, just as a side-line... they have, like a lot of eastern north American cities, black squirrels. I only mention this here, because, before I went to Montreal (the first city in my North American trek!), I had never been aware that black squirrels existed, but they are really cute and a bit bigger than grey or red squirrels.

Another thing that kept being pointed out to me, and I'm not sure how 'useful' this is, is that Montreal is also home to the largest sex shop in North America, and they seem to be very proud of this.. or maybe it was just the people I met...

It is often said to be the most 'European' of American cities. It seems to be a mixture of different cultures and that made it all the more interesting than some of the others. It has a much more exciting and varied nightlife than some of the Anglophone counterparts and if you are going, it is definitely worth making the effort to wander over to the francophone parts and not just stick to the English-speaking areas, because, in my opinion, anyway, the francophones do seem to have more fun!