3 Best Sights in Montreal, Quebec

A walk here is a walk through Montréal's multicultural history. The shops, restaurants, synagogues, and churches that line the 10-block stretch north of rue Sherbrooke reflect the various waves of immigrants that have called it home. Keep your eyes open and you'll see Jewish delis, Hungarian and Slovenian charcuterie shops, Chinese grocery stores, Italian coffee bars, Greek restaurants, Vietnamese sandwich shops, and Peruvian snack bars. You'll also spot some of the city's trendiest restaurants, cafés, and galleries, as well as the dernier cri in skateboard fashion. The first immigrants to move into the area in the 1880s were Jews escaping pogroms in Eastern Europe. It was they who called the street "the Main," as in Main Street—a nickname that endures to this day. Even Francophone Montrealers sometimes call it "La Main."

The nuns of the Religieuses Hospitalières de St-Joseph ran Montréal's Hôpital Hôtel-Dieu for more than 300 years, until the province and the Université de Montréal took it over in the 1970s. The first sisters—girls of good families caught up in the religious fervor of the age—came to New France with Jeanne Mance in the mid-1600s to look after the poor, the sick, and the dying. The order's museum—tucked away in a corner of the hospital the nuns built but no longer run—captures the spirit of that age with a series of meticulously bilingual exhibits. Just reading the excerpts from the letters and diaries of those young women helps you to understand the zeal that drove them to abandon the comforts of home for the hardships of the colonies. The museum also traces the history of medicine and nursing in Montréal.  Tours are also offered on select weekend dates (FR and ENG). Call for more details or check the website.

You could say that Parc Lafontaine is a microcosm of Montréal: the eastern half is French, with paths, gardens, and lawns laid out in geometric shapes; the western half is English, with meandering paths and irregularly shaped ponds that follow the natural contours of the land. In summer, you can take advantage of bowling greens, tennis courts, an open-air theater (Théâtre de Verdure), where there are free events, and two artificial lakes with paddleboats. In winter, one lake becomes a large skating rink. The park is named for Sir Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine (1807–1864), a pioneer of responsible government in Canada. His statue graces a plot on the park's southwestern edge. Théâtre de Verdure is temporarily closed while it undergoes reconstruction/redevelopment.