Top Attractions
The Montreal Casino
1 Avenue du Casino, Île Notre-Dame
514-392-2746
Wikipedia entry
Metro Jean-Drapeau and Bus 167 - or inquire at the Dorchester Square tourism counter or at your hotel for free bus services, or take a taxi from downtown
For 18 and over only, tenue de ville required (see website for list of unacceptable clothing)
The Casino de Montréal is a 24/7 extravaganza of gambling, food and drink. (You cannot, however, drink or eat while you gamble.) There are over 3200 slot machines and over 120 gaming tables in the casino. Built inside the pavilions of France and Quebec from Expo 67, it's a multi-level experience of roaring, tinkling games of chance. Bring money.
Underground City
pdf map from the STM
pdf map from the Université de Montréal
conceptualized RÉSO map also pdf format
Wikipedia entry
Many people come to Montreal to shop in its wide range of international boutiques. Probably the most famous aspect of shopping in Montreal is the Underground City, one of the largest underground networks in the world. The 32 kilometres of tunnel link malls, shops, office buildings, hotels, cinemas, the Bell Centre, two train stations, the South Shore bus terminal. 80% of office space and 35% of commercial space in downtown Montreal is directly linked to it.
The underground city began in the mid-1960s as a link between Central Station, the Queen Elizabeth Hotel and Place Ville-Marie, which introduced Montrealers to the concept of shopping underground. Constantly growing, the "city" is a shopper's mecca in any season. The main shopping section is reached via Peel and McGill metro stations on the green metro line, although any commercial building in the general area can usually give you access. East of McGill station is a growing axis from Place-des-Arts metro down through Complexe Desjardins and beyond.
Safe and sheltered from the elements, warm and dry in wintertime, air conditioned in summertime, the Underground City offers a huge range of goods and services as well as a handy network of shortcuts and crosslinks through the downtown core.
Notre-Dame Basilica
Metro Place d'Armes
Wikipedia entry
Don't expect Montreal's Notre-Dame Basilica to have anything in common with Paris's Notre-Dame except the name. It's a Victorian Gothic building dating from 1829, constructed on the site of a much older and smaller church which had been outgrown by its parishioners. Notre-Dame is noted for its lavish and beautiful interior, only completed towards the close of the 19th century – stained glass windows, gold-tipped polychrome carvings, paintings, carvings, statues, and especially its resplendent blue and gold altarpiece. It also has a notable Casavant organ and its biggest bell, le Gros Bourdon, is the largest on the continent. If you're on the square outside when it rings, you'll feel it down to your toes.
Notre-Dame shares Place d'Armes with the Vieux Séminaire, dating from 1683, the red sandstone New York Life building (1888) which is Montreal's first skyscraper, the elegant art deco Aldred Building (1931), the Roman Pantheon-inspired Bank of Montreal building, and the central monument to Paul Chomedey, sieur de Maisonneuve, co-founder of the original French settlement of Ville-Marie. The square is scheduled to be réaménagé next year, so it could soon look quite different.
Notre-Dame is only one of many beautiful churches in the city. Pictured is an old tinted postcard of its façade.
Mount Royal
Wikipedia entryBus 11 and walk. Or drive and walk. Or walk uphill from anywhere in the downtown area.
The lookout on top of Mount Royal is an excellent goal for an urban walk. It's in Mount Royal Park, laid out long ago by Frederick Law Olmsted, famous for landscaping New York's Central Park and other major city parks in eastern North America. From the beautifully appointed lookout terrace, downtown Montreal is at your feet, with a view to the river and beyond to the Monteregian Hills. Sight lines to landmarks are indicated by permanent markers installed on the lookout handrail. The chalet by the lookout is open in the daytime and offers bathrooms and snack machines. There's no restaurant or café in the park but, in season, you can picnic – and don't forget you're never more than a few minutes from downtown Montreal and its many restaurants.
The top of Mount Royal is divided between the park and two large cemeteries, the Catholic Notre-Dame-des-Neiges cemetery and the nondenominational Mount Royal cemetery. Both can be interesting walks for those of gothic tastes and together they form a necropolis among the largest in the world.
The Olympic Stadium
The Olympic Stadium was built for Montreal's 1976 Summer Olympics and is still used for some sports events, major concerts, large trade shows and some circuit parties. An elevator ascends the world's tallest inclined tower to a lookout on top; tickets are for sale at the base. The stadium is one of Montreal's most curious pieces of architecture and is accompanied by the Biodome, originally used as the Olympic velodrome, now an indoor zoo featuring four different ecosystems.
Across Sherbrooke Street is the Botanical Garden (best in summertime, but with large greenhouses worth a visit any time of year), the Insectarium and Maisonneuve Park.
Across Pie-IX is Château Dufresne, once a grand private mansion, now sometimes used for art exhibits.
A brand new soccer stadium is being built in the Olympic park, which also has a cinema, Maurice Richard arena, and a world-famous semi-official skateboarding pipe. It will also soon be the site of a new planetarium after the 40-year-old city planetarium on lower Peel Street is decommissioned.
