Your Montreal CME conference.

Montreal after your study day

Study days finish at 2:00 PM Montreal time. For an easy afternoon, choose one outing near your study setting: Jean-Talon Market in Little Italy, the Kondiaronk Belvedere on Mount Royal, or a walk through Old Montréal. Leave time for getting there, because the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts has no on-site parking.

Travel, accommodation and admission are arranged separately. Your conference is built around your specialty and interests; the city is the setting you choose for it.

Mount Royal and its lookouts

Tourisme Montréal describes Mount Royal as a ten-square-kilometre heritage site, with the park itself covering 200 hectares. Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed Central Park, gave the mountain its modern look, and the work opened in 1876 with the Olmsted Trail and Beaver Lake.

The Kondiaronk Belvedere beside the Mount Royal Chalet looks over downtown and is the usual stop for people on foot. The Camillien-Houde lookout faces east toward the Olympic Stadium, and a loop behind the chalet leads to the Mount Royal Cross, a 103-foot steel cross lit by LEDs and first erected in 1924. From the Mont-Royal metro station, Tourisme Montréal points to Bus 11. On Sundays in warmer months, drumming gatherings known as the Tam-tams meet at the monument on Parc Avenue.

Old Montréal on foot

Old Montréal is a cobblestone district with architecture that dates to 1685. Place Jacques-Cartier is a square with terraces and street performers, and Rue Saint-Paul has historic buildings, galleries and designer shops. Destination Canada also lists the Old Port boardwalk, where Clock Tower Beach and the Terrasses Bonsecours are popular in warmer months.

Notre-Dame Basilica stands at 110 Notre-Dame Street West. Its daytime sightseeing visit is self-guided, takes about an hour and covers 24 points of interest in the nave, with panels in French and English. The basilica has announced early closures on some dates, so check its site before you plan around it. Pointe-à-Callière, an archaeology and history museum, is built on the site where the city was founded.

Markets and neighbourhood food

Jean-Talon Market opened in 1933 at the corner of Henri-Julien and Jean-Talon streets, in the heart of Little Italy. It has fruit and vegetable growers, butchers, bakers, fishmongers and cheesemongers, and the metro stations are Jean-Talon and De Castelnau. It is open year-round, with vendors returning to the outdoor aisles around late April and moving indoors from October.

Little Italy still has Italian restaurants, cafés and pastry shops, Art Deco buildings near the market, and houses with painted spiral staircases. Atwater Market is an Art Deco market near the Lachine Canal. Bonsecours Market, in a heritage building in Old Montréal, shows work by Québec artisans and designers.

Beyond downtown: the Plateau and the east

Tourisme Montréal calls the Plateau-Mont-Royal and Mile End hip, trendy and artsy, with residential streets as well as nightlife. Its picks for the Plateau include Mont-Royal Avenue, Parc La Fontaine and the colourful houses with spiral staircases.

In the east, Olympic Park groups the 1976 Olympic Stadium, the Biodôme and the Botanical Garden. Space for Life is a four-part complex made up of the Biodôme, Botanical Garden, Insectarium and Planetarium, so compare each one’s hours with your 2:00 PM finish. Parc Jean-Drapeau spans two islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. Saint Joseph’s Oratory has a 97-metre dome and city views from its grand staircase.

Museums, shopping and the Underground City

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is at 1380 Sherbrooke Street West, near the Peel and Guy-Concordia metro stations. Check its hours against your 2:00 PM finish. The McCord Stewart Museum covers the city’s history, and Pointe-à-Callière is the archaeology option. SAT, for digital culture, and Phi, for cutting-edge art, are also on Tourisme Montréal’s list.

Sainte-Catherine Street is an 11-kilometre shopping strip downtown. The Underground City links shops, metro stations and buildings through a network of nearly 32 kilometres of passages, and Tourisme Montréal says it keeps the city moving in winter.

When to visit Montreal

Tourisme Montréal describes fall as running from crisp September days toward winter, with parks such as Mount Royal, Parc La Fontaine and Parc Jean-Drapeau changing colour. In winter, Mount Royal is used for cross-country skiing and snowshoeing, and skates can be rented at the Beaver Lake Pavilion. Old Montréal hosts the Igloofest music festival in the cold months. Warmer months bring patios on Sainte-Catherine Street and the Old Port boardwalk, and from June to October Jean-Talon Market’s aisles are closed to cars on Thursdays through Sundays, which makes the outdoor stalls easier to walk. Mount Royal’s Tam-tams also run only in the warmer months. Check a local forecast, since the tourism pages do not give temperatures.

Getting to Montreal and your study setting

Montréal–Trudeau International Airport (YUL) is the arrival point shown in this guide. Tourisme Montréal says the island has more than 25,000 hotel rooms, 16,000 of them downtown, and many are connected to metro stations, shopping centres and the underground network.

The map shows straight-line distances from Shift’s designated center. These are orientation distances, not driving distances or travel-time estimates. Check your exact address against the conference’s check-in area before booking.