‘You’ll see when you get there,’ my friend said. ‘There’s just a different vibe in Montreal.’ He wasn’t wrong. I travelled from Toronto by train – a five-hour journey made infinitely more bearable by the impressive landscapes that flashed past the window – to find that Montreal is a tale of two cities.
Still distinctly North American – and Canada’s second most populous metropolis – Montreal is dotted with all the chrome skyscrapers and wide, bustling intersections you would expect. Yet around each corner there is also a dose of seemingly incongruous European flavour: a cobbled street, an old stone church, a statue in a tree-lined square. For every modern vista, there is a strip of café culture that kids you into thinking you have strolled down a French avenue. This is when you remember you’re not in Kansas any more, Toto. C’est le Québec.
Montreal is regularly ranked one of the best cities in the world to live in, and it’s easy to see why.
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