15 Best Sights in Montreal, Quebec

The seat of the Anglican (Episcopalian) bishop of Montréal offers downtown shoppers and strollers a respite from the hustle and bustle of rue Ste-Catherine, with free noontime concerts and organ recitals. Built in 1859, the cathedral is modeled on Snettisham Parish Church in Norfolk, England, with some distinctly Canadian touches. The steeple, for example, is made with aluminum plates molded to simulate stone, and inside, the Gothic arches are crowned with carvings of the types of foliage growing on Mont-Royal when the church was built. The stained-glass windows behind the main altar, installed in the early 1920s as a memorial to the dead of World War I, show scenes from the life of Christ. On the wall just above and to the left of the pulpit is the Coventry Cross; it's made of nails taken from the ruins of Britain's Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by German bombing in 1940. Free Saturday group tours can be arranged by calling the office.

Not surprisingly, Canada's oldest museum has one of the finest collections of Canadian art anywhere. The works of such luminaries as Paul Kane, the Group of Seven, Paul-Émile Borduas, and Marc-Aurèle Fortin are displayed here in a space built onto the back of the neoclassical Erskine and American United Church, one of the city's most historic Protestant churches. The nave has been preserved as a meeting place and exhibition hall and also displays the church's 18 Tiffany stained-glass windows, the biggest collection of Tiffany's work outside the United States. The rest of the gallery's permanent collection, which includes works by everyone from Rembrandt to Renoir, is housed in its two other pavilions: the neoclassical Michal and Renata Hornstein Pavilion, across Avenue du Musée from the church, and the glittering, glass-fronted Jean-Noël-Desmarais Pavilion, across rue Sherbrooke. All three are linked by tunnels. If you visit the museum in summer, spring or fall, you'll be greeted outside the main entrance by bright, twisted glass sculpture, now part of the MMFA's permanent collection. Admission is free from 5 to 9 pm Wednesday.

Housed in a repurposed shipyard boasting 80,000 square feet of exhibition space, Arsenal Art Contemporain dedicates itself to the support, promotion, and development of contemporary art and has been credited with helping revitalize the old industrial area of Griffintown. The largest private art center in Canada, it was originally founded in Montréal in 2011 but also has locations in Toronto and New York City.

The best reason to visit this cathedral is that it's a quarter-scale replica of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome—complete with a magnificent reproduction of Bernini's ornate baldachin (canopy) over the main altar and an ornately coffered ceiling. When Bishop Ignace Bourget (1799–1885) decided to build his cathedral in the heart of the city's Protestant-dominated commercial quarter, many fellow Catholics thought he was crazy. But the bishop was determined to assert the Church's authority—and its loyalty to Rome—in the British-ruled city. Bourget didn't live to see the cathedral dedicated in 1894, but his tomb holds a place of honor among those of his successors in the burial chapel on the east side of the nave.

The Montréal Canadiens haven't won the Stanley Cup since 1993, though they came very close in June 2021, ultimately losing the finals against Tampa Bay. Most of the team's fans can't remember the golden 1960s and '70s, when Les Glorieux virtually owned the trophy. The superstitious blame the team's fallen fortunes on its 1996 move from the hallowed Forum to the brown-brick Centre Bell arena. Still, Montréal is a hockey-mad city and the Habs, as locals call the team, are still demigods here, and there are even university courses based on this superstar team. (When they celebrated their 100th season in 2009–10, the city changed the name of the strip of rue de la Gauchetière in front of the Centre Bell to Avenue des Canadiens-de-Montréal.) The Bell Centre is also a venue for blockbuster acts like Coldplay, Drake, and Trevor Noah.

Montréal's largest Presbyterian church—sometimes affectionately called the A&P—is worth a visit, if only to see the glorious stained-glass window of the risen Christ that dominates the sanctuary behind the white-stone communion table. It's a memorial to members of the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada (the Black Watch) who were killed in World War I.

Merchant and fur trader James McGill would probably be horrified to know that the university that he helped found in 1828 has developed an international reputation as one of North America's best party schools. McGill also happens to be one of the two or three best universities in Canada, and certainly one of the prettiest. Its campus is an island of grass and trees in a sea of traffic and skyscrapers. The statue of James McGill himself was removed in Summer 2021 after several bouts of vandalism aimed at the representation of the deceased slave owner. Take the time to stroll up the drive that leads from the Greek Revival Roddick Gates to the austere neoclassical Arts Building and meander over to the splendid Romanesque Redpath Hall building. McGill's first dedicated library is now a grand 300-seat concert hall ( www.mcgill.ca/music/about-us/halls/redpath-hall), though the newer library building next door still bears the generous benefactor's name. If you have an hour or so, drop into the temple-like Redpath Museum of Natural History ( www.mcgill.ca/redpath) to browse its eclectic collection of dinosaur bones, old coins, African art, and shrunken heads.

If you have a taste for pastoral landscapes and formal portraits, you might want to stick with the Musée des Beaux-Arts, but for a walk on the wild side of art, head to the Musée d'art contemporain (MAC) and see what you can make of the jagged splashes of color that cover the canvases of the "Automatistes," as Québec's rebellious artists of the 1930s styled themselves. The works of the Automatistes form the core of this museum's collection of 5,000 pieces. The museum often has weekend programs and art workshops, some of which are geared toward children, and almost all are free. And for a little romance and music with your art, try the Vendredi Nocturnes (Nocturnal Fridays) with live music, bar service, and guided tours of the exhibits. Hours for guided tours vary.

David Ross McCord (1844–1930) was a wealthy pack rat with a passion for anything that had to do with Montréal or Canadian history. His collection of paintings, costumes, toys, tools, drawings, and housewares provides a glimpse of what city life was like for all classes in the 19th century. If you're interested in the lifestyles of the elite, however, you'll love the photographs that William Notman (1826–91) took of the rich at play. One series portrays members of the posh Montréal Athletic Association posing in snowshoes on the slopes of Mont-Royal, all decked out in Hudson Bay coats and woolen hats. Each of the hundreds of portraits was shot individually in a studio and then painstakingly mounted on a picture of the snowy mountain to give the impression of a winter outing. There are guided tours (call for schedule), a reading room, a documentation center, a gift shop, a bookstore, and a café. Admission is free from 5 to 9 pm Wednesday.

Montréal's primary performing-arts complex has been hosting performances since 1963, and since 2010 the complex has been undergoing a major makeover to stunning effect. The glass-walled Maison Symphonique 2,000-seat concert hall is the permanent home of the Montréal Symphony Orchestra; with state-of-the-art acoustics and only 75 feet between the end of the stage and the last row, it's an intimate place for concerts. The Salle Wilfrid Pelletier performance space is used by three resident companies: the Opéra de Montréal, Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, and the popular Jean Duceppe theater company. The venue's four other performance spaces host dance, theater, and festival events. Place des Arts is also the centerpiece of the city's Quartier des Spectacles, a square kilometer dedicated to arts and culture, with performance halls, dance studios, broadcasting facilities, and recording studios. The huge plaza, or esplanade, in front of the complex is a favorite gathering place for locals and visitors—especially during the Jazz Festival and Just for Laughs, when it's packed with free concerts and entertainment. Even if you don't have tickets to something, you can walk around the quartier during festival season (pretty much all summer) to take in a variety of shows and concerts for free.

The cross-shaped 1962 office tower of Place Ville-Marie was Montréal's first modern skyscraper; the mall complex underneath it was the first link in the Underground City. The wide expanse of the building's plaza, just upstairs from the mall, makes a good place to relax with coffee or a snack. Benches, picnic tables, potted greenery, and fine views of Mont-Royal make it popular with walkers, tourists, and office workers. While there you'll surely want to try out the new (2019) glass-encased gastro food pavilion, Le Cathcart Restaurants et Biergarten ( lecathcart.com/en). For more great views of the city, the building's 44th floor is home to a rooftop gourmet brasserie, Les Enfants Terribles, which boasts a year-round terrace.

On sunny summer days you can join the office workers, store clerks, and Downtown shoppers who gather in these two green squares in the center of the city to eat lunch under the trees and perhaps listen to an open-air concert. If there are no vacant benches or picnic tables, you can still find a place to sit on the steps at the base of the dramatic monument to the dead of the Boer War. Other statues honor Scottish poet Robert Burns (1759–96) and Sir Wilfrid Laurier (1841–1919), Canada's first French-speaking prime minister. Meanwhile, the statue of Sir John A. MacDonald, Canada's first prime minister, has been removed for he was one of the architects of Canada's inhumane residential school system for Indigenous children.

This is possibly the prettiest Anglican (Episcopalian) church in Montréal. Step into its dim, candle-scented interior and you'll feel you've been transported to some prosperous market town in East Anglia, England. The double hammer-beam roof, the rich stained-glass windows, and the Lady Chapel on the east side of the main altar all add to the effect. It certainly seems a world away from Centre Bell, the modern temple to professional hockey that's across the street.

Built in 1847, this is one of the purest examples of the Gothic Revival style in Canada, with a high-vaulted ceiling glowing with green and gold mosaics. The tall, slender columns are actually pine logs lashed together and decorated to look like marble, so that if you stand in one of the back corners and look toward the altar you really do feel as if you're peering at the sacred through a grove of trees. St. Pat's—as most of its parishioners call it—is to Montréal's Anglophone Catholics what the Basilique Notre-Dame is to their French-speaking brethren—the mother church and a monument to faith and courage. One of the joys of visiting the place is that you'll probably be the only tourist there, so you'll have plenty of time to check out the old pulpit and the huge lamp decorated with six 2-meter- (6-foot-) tall angels hanging over the main altar. And if you're named after some relatively obscure saint like Scholastica or Aeden of Fleury, you can search for your namesake's portrait among the 170 painted panels on the walls of the nave. For a solemn experience visit on the third Sunday of the month (September through June), when the mass is sung completely in Latin.

Place Ville-Marie, the cruciform skyscraper designed by I. M. Pei, was the tallest structure in the city when it opened in 1962. Located in the heart of Downtown, it signaled the beginning of Montréal's subterranean city. Montrealers were skeptical that anyone would want to shop or even walk around in the new "down" town, but more than five decades later they can't live without it, especially in winter.

About half a million people use the 32-km (20-mile) Underground City, or la ville souterraine, daily. The tunnels link 10 métro stations, 7 hotels, 200 restaurants, 1,700 boutiques, and 60 office buildings—not to mention movie theaters, concert halls, convention complexes, the Centre Bell, two universities, and a college. In 2004, the Underground City was rebranded as the "RESO," a play on the word "réseau," which means network. You'll see the signs for it in the Downtown area and can find a map of the network at montrealvisitorsguide.com/the-underground-city-map.