In short
Montreal is an island, and the largest French-speaking city in the Americas. French is the official language and the language of signage: not a courtesy but a legal framework, and it shapes public life.
Le Plateau-Mont-Royal, with its outdoor spiral staircases, is the emblematic district. Mile End holds the creative scene and the bagels. Old Montreal is the historic part, by the river. Villeray and Rosemont are the everyday neighbourhoods.
Arriving and getting around
Montréal-Trudeau airport is linked to the centre by the REM, an automated network, and by the 747 bus route.
The metro has four lines and works well. BIXI, the bike share running from April to November, complements it effectively.
The underground network, known as the RÉSO, links some thirty kilometres of metro stations, shopping centres, offices and universities. It is not a curiosity: it is what makes winter workable.
What it really costs
Montreal remains one of the cheapest large North American cities for housing, despite a marked rise in recent years.
Taxes are not included in displayed prices and a tip, around fifteen to twenty per cent in restaurants, is expected. A meal costs in practice a quarter more than the menu says.
When to come
May–June and September–October. Summer is hot, humid and full of festivals; autumn gives the colours.
Winter is serious: from December to March, temperatures drop regularly below minus twenty, with colder spells. That is not an argument against, but it has to be dressed for.
What nobody tells you
1 July is moving day. By tradition and by lease calendar, a large part of the city changes home on the same day: congested streets, trucks everywhere, saturated services. Avoid it as an arrival date.
The Montreal bagel is not the New York bagel: smaller, sweeter, wood-fired. St-Viateur and Fairmount, in Mile End, are open twenty-four hours.
Mount Royal, laid out by Frederick Law Olmsted — the designer of Central Park — is the city's lung; the tam-tams gather there on summer Sundays.
Shops display in French; knowing a few words is received as a mark of respect, and English is widely understood.