Montreal Hotels

Montréal has a wide variety of accommodations, from the big chain hotels you'll find in every city to historic inns, boutique hotels, and bargain-rate hostels. You can sleep in the room where Liz Taylor and Richard Burton got married or book a bed in an 18th-century stone inn where George Washington didn't sleep, but Benjamin Franklin did.

Keep in mind that during peak season (May through August), finding a bed without making reservations can be difficult. From mid-November to early April, rates often drop, and throughout the year many hotels have two-night, three-day, double-occupancy packages at substantial discounts.

Most of the major hotels—the ones with big meeting rooms, swimming pools, and several bars and restaurants—are in the downtown area, which makes them ideal for those who want all the facilities along with easy access to the big department stores and malls on rue Ste-Catherine, the museums of the Golden Square Mile and nightlife on rues Crescent and de la Montagne. If you want something a little more historic, consider renting a room in one of the dozen or so boutique hotels that occupy the centuries-old buildings lining the cobbled streets of Vieux-Montréal. Most of them offer all the conveniences along with the added charm of stone walls, casement windows, and period-style furnishings.

If, however, your plans include shopping expeditions to avenue Mont-Royal and rue Laurier with maybe a few late nights at the jazz bars and dance clubs of Main Street and rue St-Denis, then the place to bed down is in one of the Plateau Mont-Royal's small but comfortable hotels. Room rates in the area tend to be quite reasonable, but be careful: the hotels right in the middle of the action—on rue St-Denis for example—can be a little noisy, especially if you get a room fronting the street.

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