Montréal in 24 Hours 52 Minutes

City Highlights

• Location: Montréal, Québec, Canada

• Population (metro): 4.29 million (2021, Statistics Canada)

• Known for: Largest city in Québec, largest French-speaking city outside of France, center of Quebecois culture, Mont-Royal Park, festivals including Montreal Jazz Festival and Canadian Grand Prix

• Weather during visit: Cloudy with snow showers, -7 to 5ºC (19-41ºF)

• Time in Place: 24 hours 52 minutes

La Métropole du Canada, Montréal fully embodies the spirit of its official motto, “Concordia Salus,” well-being through harmony. This Francophone city is home to a thriving culture of cuisine, celebration, and Canadiens Hockey, leading to an exciting trip for those looking to explore something unique without having to cross an ocean. From the peaks of Mont-Royal to the banks of the Saint-Laurent, and even extending underground, a bustling and modern metropolis is waiting for découverte.

My travel partner and I spent almost exactly 24 hours in Québec, thoroughly soaking up a snowy city that is simultaneously familiar to what I’d find in the US midwest, while also exuding a foreign charm thanks to the prominent Québécois culture. Most tourists do not choose to visit the northern city amid winter, but our timing allowed us to see what the city looks like blanketed in snow while also missing the worst of the crowds.

Arrivée à Montréal

Getting to Montréal from the US or other provinces in Canada is relatively easy thanks to a variety of connections. Montréal Gare Centrale (Central Station) is a major rail hub for Canada, with nearly 11 million intercity rail passengers annually. This makes Montréal the second largest station in the country after Toronto’s Union Station. Part of why Gare Centrale is so large for intercity rail is that it functions as the terminus for five different intercity and long-distance services on Via Rail’s networks, most notably the Ocean service from Montréal to Halifax. Other notable services include those to Ottawa, Québec City, and Toronto. Montréal also features one of the few international rail stations in North America, with service to New York City provided via Amtrak’s Adirondack line. Other train stations in the region include Dorval, Saint-Lambert, and Longueuil, all accessible via Via Rail.

For those coming from further away, there are many aerial connections to the city. My travel partner and I arrived at Montréal Trudeau International Airport (YUL). YUL is the largest airport serving the greater Montréal metropolitan area, located around 20km (12 mi) west of downtown. Home to Air Canada’s head offices and one of its main operating bases, there are hundreds of destinations available from Montréal. One unique feature of the airport is the split design of the airport, featuring three terminals nearly identical in size to separate domestic, international, and “transborder” (US) flights. YUL has pre-clearance facilities for the United States, meaning flights arriving in the US from Montréal are treated as domestic flights and passengers do not have to reeler customs. Thanks in large part to being the headquarters for Air Canada, and due to the metropolitan status of Montréal as a whole, the airport services Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America with direct flights. Other airports with commercial service in the area include Longueuil (Montréal Metropolitan), though this airport primarily only services intra-Canada flights to destinations like Iqaluit and Bonaventure, and Plattsburgh Airport located about two hours south of downtown Montréal in New York.

Since we were coming from the United States, we arrived and departed through the transborder terminal. The airport was very well designed, allowing for lots of natural light and passenger amenities. There was a large variety of shops and restaurants, plenty of accessible restrooms, water bottle filling stations, and even a children’s play area in the transborder terminal. We did not have the chance to use them but there are multiple airline lounges located throughout the terminals, with Air Canada operating Star Alliance lounges in all three terminals.

After disembarking our aircraft, we travelled up several flights of escalators to a long, separated walkway to get to customs. Throughout the walk, there were signs saying customs were operating on reduced staffing and to expect long wait times. However, when we finally got to the customs area, there was no line to speak of. Montréal uses a three-step process for completing immigration. First, fill out a customs card using a kiosk to scan your passport and answer a few questions. Then, present the card to a customs agent. They will ask a few questions about the nature of visiting, but nothing too major to be concerned about. They will mark the card and allow you to proceed to claim checked luggage (if necessary) before handing the marked customs card to a final agent and allowing you into the country.

Getting Around Montréal

Montréal is home to one of the most expansive transportation networks in the Americas, including the third busiest metro system in North America after New York and Mexico City. Getting around the city is very easy thanks to the vast fleets of trains and busses operated by Société de transport de Montréal. Montréal’s transit system consists of five metro lines on two separate systems as well as over two hundred bus lines. The Montréal Metro (depicted on the system by a blue and white arrow logo) is the first metro system in the region, with four lines serving 68 stations along nearly 70 km (43 mi) of track. One of the most unique features of the Montréal Metro is that it runs on rubber-tired trains, being one of only two in North America to do so alongside Mexico City.

The second, and newer, system is the still-in-progress REM (Réseau express métropolitain [Metropolitan Express Network]), a steel-wheeled, fully automated system built by a pension scheme. The modern system features improvements upon the Metro, such as platform screen doors, and operates mostly above ground while the Metro is fully underground. The first portion opened in 2023 with five stations over nearly 17 km (10 mi), though there are two more segments projected to open in 2025 and 2027 connecting downtown Montréal with Dean-Montagnes, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, and the airport. Montréal also has an extensive commuter rail system called Exo that we did not utilize.

STM uses a unified ticketing system between the Metro, REM, Exo, and the bus system called OPUS. While primarily used in the greater Montréal area, the cards also work for Québec City’s Réseau de transport de la Capital (Capital Transportation Network). Cards are available for purchase at all metro stations, train stations, and from a few other locations like the airport or retailers. A new card costs $6 (note, all prices for this trip unless otherwise notated are in CAD) and can be loaded with either passes or fares but not stored value like most other systems. We purchased a 24-hour pass for our trip, a perfect solution for cheaply getting around the city at $11 a pass, which is the same as a one-way trip on the 747 bus. A normal one-way fare within zone A (basically all of Île de Montréal) costs $3.75 at the time of writing.

After purchasing our OPUS cards, we were ready to set off to explore the city. While not as nice as a rail connection, mostly due to the size constraints compared to the popularity of the service, the 747 bus directly connects YUL to downtown including stops on the Metro. The service was packed to capacity when we used it, operating the full journey standing-room only. Around a half hour after departing the airport, we arrived at Gare Lionel-Grouix to transfer to the Orange Line.

Most stations we used on the Metro were fairly similar as they we primarily constructed during the same time. This design goes all the way down to the odd door design where one large panel effectively functions as two doors, opening in opposite directions at the same time. After pushing (hard) our way through this oddity, we were met with fare gates and then escalators to take us to the platform level. After an approximately five-minute wait, we were greeted with the sight of a modern blue metro train. Even though we arrived in Montréal in the early afternoon on a weekday, the Metro was still relatively busy. We could find seats onboard, but the trains and platforms were quite busy, especially when compared to some other systems in the US around the same time of day. Five stops and six minutes later we arrived at Place-d’Armes, ready to explore the wintered city.

Out of Season

After exiting Place-d’Armes station, we walked along the snow-covered sidewalks to the east, heading towards the Vieúx Port area of the city and several of the tourist spots associated with it. The first such site we came across was the Place-d’Armes and Basilique Notre-Dame de Montréal. This area was still decorated from the winter holiday season, with Christmas trees and garlands adorning the square and church. In the center of the square is the Maisonneuve Monument, a statue dedicated to Paul Comedy de Maisonneuve, the founder of Montréal. The Notre Dame Basilica is a grand building decorated in a Gothic Revival style (the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris is the original Gothic style). Featuring two large towers and stained glass, the church is lovely, though much of the external structure was covered in scaffolding. We were told the inside was also just as nice, though we did not enter as tickets were $16. Instead, we snapped a few photos from the outside and continued down to the waterfront.

Montréal is a lovely city in all seasons, but we did find that we were visiting much outside of the normal tourist season. Many of the typical shops one expects to find in tourist destinations: ice cream parlors, souvenir stalls, and fancy restaurants, were closed and shuttered. We further found out why Montréal does not have a thriving tourist economy in the winter as we walked along the Parc Linéaire de la Commune and the Saint-Laurent; it was very windy and incredibly cold. While rather picturesque in some sections, the grey sky threatening to unleash snow at any moment did not also paint attractions in the best light, literally. Along this section are a few other notable destinations within Montréal like Le Grande Roue, Centre des Sciences de Montréal, the Clock Tower, and Habitat 67. We decided to head more into the city to escape from the windchill when we came across Place Jacques-Cartier and followed the street up to the main government complex in Montréal. This area is home to various courts and administrative buildings, from the neoclassical Édifice Ernest-Cormier to the modernist Palais de Justice.

By this point in the day we had been up for a long time and had yet to eat a proper meal, so we seized the opportunity to try some food at a nearby restaurant. Of course, this being Québec, we had to try perhaps its most famous food: poutine. Though there are many claims to the inventor of the fry-based dish, it was definitely first created within the province and has since become an important symbol of Québécois culture. We all but stumbled into Marche Vieux, a small cafe featuring furniture from probably a dozen different eras of design, and ordered a traditional poutine to sample. I am happy to announce that poutine is simply wonderful and the Québécois should be proud of their notable contribution to the world of cuisine. This was also significantly helped by the fact that the warm and filling meal was exactly what we needed after a long morning to get back out and explore some more.

After finishing our poutine we had waited long enough to check into our hostel for the night, so we made our way back to Place-d’Armes station and boarded an Orange line train to Barri-UQAM. We check into M Montréal for the evening, a rather nice hostel a couple of blocks from the Metro. It was a fairly typical hostel one would expect to find in European cities like Madrid or Milan and not in US cities like Miami or Milwaukee. We opted for a six-bed dorm and found the room and attached ensuite to be mostly clean though definitely smelling of marijuana. Grateful for the lockers to drop off our bags, we set out once more into the Canadian winter, eager to explore more of the city.

Accidental Ascent

Departing from the hostel we retraced our steps to Barri-QUAM and took the orange line a few stops west to Mont-Royal station. While walking along Avenue Mont-Royal snow lightly began to fall, adding to the atmosphere of the city. The snow was quite light so we did not think much of it and pressed on to our destination, Mount Royal.

Mount Royal is the center point of Montréal and its namesake. More of a tall hill than a proper mountain, the triple-peaks of Mount Royal are home to one of the largest parks in the city, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted of New York Central Park fame. With multiple trails and lovely views of the city, we were eager to see what was inside the park. While approaching the mountain, we noticed plenty of schoolchildren finishing up their school day by sledding down parts of the mountain.

We started our ascent without a particular path in mind, just trying to climb and see what we could. However, while we gained elevations, we also gained snow accumulation as it began to fall faster. The forest was lovely, covered with fresh snowfall that made the trees stand stark against the white ground and grey sky. The grey sky also began to grow darker, and darker, and darker. Even though it was only 4 pm around this time, we were relatively far north and the sun had already begun to set. We continued awhile longer, not quite sure where we were going or how we were getting there. When we reached a giant, glowing cross at the peak of the snowfall, we decided it was a sign we should make our way back down the mountain.

Descending via a road that was closed for the season, we found one of the sights we had originally set out to see in the park, the Kondiaronk Belvedere, a large area with spectacular views of Downtown Montréal. While on a clear summer day, we could expect to see for miles beyond, all we saw that night was a hazy glow of the city’s lights through the falling snow. This just gives me an excuse to return to Montréal, but in the summer and during the day when things should actually be visible. Also at this spot is the Mount Royal Chalet, a French Beaux Arts-style hall built in 1932. The chalet is a delightful building, with a large event space as well as public restrooms, a cafe, and a gift shop, all maintained by a team of dedicated volunteers in addition to the park staff. It was the perfect place to warm ourselves up before continuing down the mountain.

To get back into town we went down the hundreds of steps of Le Grand Escalier du Mont-Royal. Going down a staircase covered with snow and ice at night when there is very little lighting is not recommended generally, and I can understand why as it was a rather perilous descent. At the base, we were greeted by the campus of McGill University, one of the largest and most significant universities in Canada. Walking with the crowds of students finishing classes for the day we eventually reached Place des Arts, home to the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Place Ville Marie mall.

After eating a quick dinner in the mall, we set off to explore another unique feature of Montréal, the Underground City. The Underground City is a series of underground connections between buildings, used by an estimated half a million people daily to get between locations during Montréal’s harsh winters. We were able to walk entirely indoors between Place Ville Marie and Gare Central, with many different shops and businesses along the way. There were other similar complexes we passed through on this trip, though by far the Underground City is the largest (hence the name).

At Gare Centrale we wanted to try the newest transit line in Montréal, Ligne 1 on the REM. As previously mentioned, the brand new system is fully autonomous and has only opened within the past year at the time of writing. It’s incredibly modern, and the automation means that the headways are quite frequent, even late into the evening on the random Tuesday we were in town. The stations were clean, though we did not see a single staff member at either end of the line. Returning to Gare Centrale we made our way back to the metro to hop on the next northbound train. We spent a good portion of the day traveling and hiking a mountain in a snowstorm, so we were exhausted and decided to call it a day.

Northern Exposure

After waking up and checking out of the hostel the next morning, we departed for the Metro station in a city less snow-covered than the one we arrived in, but also significantly slushier. Overnight the snow had turned to rain, and although the temperature had risen slightly, it was still cold and damp, with a not insignificant amount of grey sludge in the roads and clogging the crosswalks. One area where Montréal did not impress was the snow removal, specifically along sidewalks and crosswalks. Each time my travel partner and I had to cross a road it was a puzzle to figure out how to get across without getting soaked from trodding through snowbanks as high as our hips from the street plows. A world-class city such as Montréal, especially one with a significant amount of its population who get around by walking and transit, should pay more mind to keeping sidewalks cleared for pedestrians. For all of our efforts, by the time we reached our destination, we were soggy, cold, and hungry again. Despite this, we welcomed the sight of the market.

Marché Jean-Talon is the largest market in Montréal and one of the largest open-air markets in North America. During the summer there is a vast series of arcades playing host to over 300 farmers and vendors from around the region. During the winter, the market still operates, though walls are placed around the central section and the size is greatly reduced to around 20 specialty boutiques and grocers. We visited the market shortly after the doors were opened to the public, leading to a quite well-stocked market. There was produce of all varieties, even in the midst of winter. Additionally, there was a small cafe selling delectable pastries, including a variety of pasteis de nada (Portuguese custard tarts). My travel partner and I each got one; she went for the mixed berry while I opted for white chocolate and raspberry. Both were absolutely delectable, and we could have gotten many more if we wanted as they were under $2 each. Finishing our pastries and our walk through the market, we slogged through the slush back to the Metro for our last major stop of the trip.

Les Jeux et L’Aéroport

Les Jeux de la XXIe Olympiade (1976 Summer Olympics) was perhaps the most significant sporting event to be held in the city, and the Olympic Park reflects this. As the only Canadian city to host the Summer Olympics (Vancouver and Calgary have both hosted the Winter Games), Montréal pulled out all of the stops to ensure the games would be magnificent. Although this led to the largest cost overrun on record for any Olympic Games, this also meant the facilities were top-notch, and are still one of the largest attractions when visiting the francophone city.

There is a direct link between the Metro and the Olympic Stadium underground, allowing for easy access to the various events that are held there. There is a large variety of events at the stadium, including sports, concerts, and commercial expos. While we were in town the stadium was hosting a swim meet with a large pool constructed in the middle. Perhaps the most eye-catching component of the stadium exterior, the Montréal Tower, was not opened with the stadium for the games. Instead, it was constructed after the fact due to delays, and today you can ride an inclined elevator to the top for some impressive views.

We emerged from underground and found ourselves amid a bank of low clouds. This created an eerie but impressive backdrop for the stadium, with the inclined tower poking into the bottom of the overcast. There were significant snow removal operations underway while we were walking around the complex, and the drips the plows would create often blocked our path. Completing a loop around the stadium and seeing a few of the other structures like Saputo Stadium where Montréal’s MLS team plays, we had had our fill and decided to make our way back to the airport.

The path back to the airport was quite similar to the route we had taken into the city; Green line from Pie-IX to Lionel-Grouix and then the 747 bus to the airport. Arriving at the airport, we checked in for our flight, cleared Canadian security (where TSA PreCheck does not work), and then completed US immigration. This was a wonderful convenience as I had a tight connection when getting back to the US, meaning I did not have to deal with scrambling through customs and running to a different terminal. This time we did partake in some of the passenger amenities, such as Canada’s favorite bakery Tim Hortons. I was extremely impressed with the prices in the airport as it did not seem like there was much markup from the normal street prices. At Tim Hortons, most pastries and basic items were under $2, including their famous Maple donuts.

Overall I quite enjoyed our trip to Montréal. Visiting in the winter gave a much different feel to the city compared to visiting in the summer. The weather was not exactly what we were hoping for, but seeing Montréal in the snow was a unique perspective that not many other tourists get to experience. Visiting again in the summer would be ideal for getting views from Kondiaronk Belvedere or exploring more of the Saint-Laurent, but to see the city covered in lights for the holidays made the trip worth it. Montréal and Québec, in general, should be a high-priority trip for most travelers; it’s got a lot of the charm of visiting an old European city without the eight-hour flight to get there. There are plenty of things to see and do in the city year-34eieuround, including items like the Underground City or Québécois culture that don’t need good weather to be enjoyable. Sun or snow, hot or cold, there is so much to do in La Métropole and I look forward to visiting again to see even more of what it has to offer.