DISCOVER MONTREAL
Montreal was the industrial centre of Canada. The variety of buildings included factories, elevators, warehouses, mills, and refineries which today provide a legacy of historic and architectural interest. Habitat 67's striking design was created by architect Moshe Safdie based on his master's thesis at McGill University and built as part of Expo 67.
Today there are also many historical buildings in Old Montreal still in their original form: Notre-Dame Basilica, Hotel de Ville, Marche Bonsecours, Rue St.Jacques with 19th century impressive headquarters of all major Canadian banks and are some of the architectural landmarks of old Montreal.
Stade Olympic 1976, Maison Alcan, 1000 de La Gauchetiere Tower, Biodome, Jacques Cartier Bridge, Montreal World Trade Centre, Place Jean Riopelle and Square Cartier are among fine examples of 20th and 21st centuries architecture.
The Montreal Metro is filled with a profusion of public artwork by some of the biggest names in Quebec culture. The design and ornamentation of each metro station in Montreal is unique.
 DOWNTOWN MONTREAL
Downtown Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal, much of which is a major urban park, and extends toward the St Lawrence River. The Downtown area contains dozens of notable skyscrapers - which, bylaws restrict to the height of Mount Royal - including the 1000 de La Gauchetiere and 1250 Rene-Levesque. The Tour de la Bourse (Stock Exchange Tower) is also another significant building in Montreal, and is home to the Montreal Exchange, which trades in derivatives such as futures contracts and options. The Montreal Exchange was the first stock exchange in Canada. In 1999 all stock trades were transferred to Toronto in exchange for exclusivity in derivatives trading.
Place Ville-Marie, an I. M. Pei-designed cruciform office tower built in 1962, sits atop an underground shopping mall that forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, businesses, museums and universities, as well as metro stations, train stations, bus terminals, and tunnels extending all over downtown.
The central axis for downtown is Saint Catherine Street, Canada's busiest commercial artery. Other major streets include Sherbrooke, Rene-Levesque, Peel, de la Montagne, de Maisonneuve and Crescent. The Montreal Skyline panorama includes two islands, Īle Ste. Helene and Ile Notre-Dame. The Notre Dame island hosts the Canadian Grand Prix and Formula One car races, as well as the Champ Car tournament. La Ronde is the biggest amusement park in Montreal and is located on Īle Ste. Helene. The Montreal Fireworks Festival is held there every summer.
The Ville-Marie borough is arguably the heart and soul of the metropolis. Its vitality is extraordinary and it is constantly bubbling over with arts, culture, recreational and business activities. Ville Marie sector is composed of downtown financial hub, vieux port, square cartier residential district, quartier international, le village and quartier Latin.
The basic Skyline view may be seen from one of two lookouts on Mount Royal. The lookout at the Belevedere takes in downtown, the river, and the Monteregien Hills, and on clear days the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York or the Green Mountains of Vermont are visible. The view of eastern lookout on Remembrance Rd. sweeps out toward the Olympic Stadium, and beyond. Many tourists visit these lookouts.
UNDERGROUND CITY
Extending all over downtown is Montreal's Underground City (French: La ville souterraine), a set of pedestrian levels built to cross under streets, thereby connecting buildings to each other. It is also known as the indoor city (ville interieure), as not all of it is underground. The connections are considered tunnels architecturally and technically, but have conditioned air and good lighting as any building's liveable space does.
Many tunnels are large enough to have shops on both sides of the passage. With over 32 kilometres (20 mi) of tunnels spread over more than twelve square kilometres (5 sq mi), connected areas include shopping malls, hotels, banks, offices, museums, universities, seven metro stations, two commuter train stations, a regional bus terminal and the Bell Centre amphitheatre and arena. There are more than 120 exterior access points to the underground city. Each access point is an entry point to one of 60 residential or commercial complexes comprising 3.6 square kilometres (1.4 sq mi) of floor space, including 80% of all office space and 35% of all commercial space in downtown Montreal. In winter, some 500,000 people use the underground city every day.
Because of its Underground City, Montreal is often referred to as "Two Cities in One."
MOUNT ROYAL
The mountain is the site of Mount Royal Park (officially Parc du Mont-Royal), one of Montreal's largest greenspaces. The park, most of which is wooded, was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who also designed New York's Central Park, and inaugurated in 1876.
The park contains two belvederes, the more prominent of which is the Kondiaronk Belvedere, a semicircular plaza with a chalet, overlooking downtown Montreal. Other features of the park are Beaver Lake, a small man-made lake; a short ski slope; a sculpture garden; Smith House, an interpretive centre; and a well-known monument to Sir George-Etienne Cartier. The park hosts athletic, tourist, and cultural activities.
The mountain is also home to two major cemeteries, Notre-Dame-des-Neiges (founded in 1854) and Mount Royal (1852). Mount Royal Cemetery is a 165 acre terraced cemetery on the north slope of Mount Royal in the borough of Outremont. Cimetiere Notre-Dame-des-Neiges is much larger, predominantly French-Canadian and officially Catholic. More than 900,000 people are buried there.
Mount Royal Cemetery contains more than 162,000 graves and is the final resting place for a number of notable Canadians. It includes a veterans section with several soldiers who were awarded the British Empire's highest military honour, the Victoria Cross. In 1901 the Mount Royal Cemetery Company established the first crematorium in Canada.
The name of the city of Montreal derives from mont Real, an orthographic variant introduced either in French, or by an Italian map maker ("Mount Royal" is monte Reale in Italian). The name had been unofficially applied to the city, formerly Ville-Marie, by the 18th century.
The first cross on the mountain was placed there in 1643 by Paul Chomedey de Maisonneuve, the founder of the city, in fulfilment of a vow he made to the Virgin Mary when praying to her to stop a disastrous flood. Today, the mountain is crowned by a 31.4 m (103 ft) high illuminated cross, installed in 1924 by the Societe Saint-Jean-Baptiste and now owned by the city. It was converted to fibre-optic light in 1992. The new system can turn the lights red, blue, or purple, the last of which is used as a sign of mourning between the death of the Pope and the election of the next. (This operation was previously accomplished by changing all the light bulbs.)
OLD MONTREAL
Just southeast of downtown is Old Montreal (French: Vieux-Montreal), a historic area with such attractions as the Old Port, Place Jacques-Cartier, City Hall, the Marche Bonsecours, Place d'Armes, Pointe-a-Calliere Museum, and the Notre-Dame de Montreal Basilica.
Montreal is known for contrast between old and new architecture. Architecture and cobbled streets in Old Montreal have been maintained or restored to keep the look of the city in its earliest days as a settlement, and horse-drawn caleches help maintain that image. Old Montreal is accessible from the downtown core via the underground city and is served by several STM bus routes and metro stations, ferries to the South Shore and a network of bicycle paths.
Old Montreal was once a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to a new, bigger location site, leaving the Old Port as a historical area. It is now the biggest container port in North America. The riverside area of Old Port (French: Vieux-Port), adjacent to Old Montreal, is now a recreational and historical area maintained by Parks Canada.
From Wikipedia
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