5 Best Sights in Montreal, Quebec

You can rattle around Canada's largest railroad museum in a vintage tram specially built for Montréal sightseeing tours in the 1950s, when the city still had a streetcar system. The museum has more than 120 train cars and locomotives, but if you're a steam buff, you won't want to miss CPR 5935, the largest steam locomotive built in Canada, and CNR 4100, the most powerful in the British Empire when it was built in 1924. To see how the rich and powerful traveled, take a look at Sir William Van Horne's luxurious private car. Of special interest to the kids will be the car that served as a mobile classroom. The museum is south of the city in the town of St-Constant. On weekdays Expo runs commuter trains from the Gare Lucien-l'Allier, next to the Centre Bell, to Candiac/St. Constant. Trains depart at 9:35 am and return at 1:27 pm.

Located in the waterfront park at the end of the Lachine Canal, on the shores of Lac St-Louis, this early 19th-century stone warehouse has been converted into a museum that commemorates the industry that dominated Canada's early history.

A few jagged stone walls are all that remain of Montréal's first general hospital. The ruins—which once formed the west wing and the transept of the chapel—have been preserved as a memorial to Canada's first native-born saint, Marguerite d'Youville (1701–71), who took over the hospital in 1747 and ran it until a fire destroyed the building in 1765. Ste-Marguerite's life was no walk in the park, as you'll find out if you visit the Maison de Mère d'Youville next door to the ruins. Marguerite started looking after the city's down-and-outers after the death of her abusive and disreputable husband. Amused that the widow of a whiskey trader should be helping the town drunks, locals took to calling Marguerite and her Soeurs de la Charité (Sisters of Charity) the Soeurs-Grises (Grey Nuns), slang for "tipsy nuns." The Maison has some remarkable reminders of her life, such as the kitchen where she worked, with its enormous fireplace and stone sink. Call ahead for tours of the house.  As of June 2025, the museum is still under renovation but the exterior is pretty.

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. The McCord Stewart Museum's mission is to showcase life in Montréal, past and present. There are guided tours (call for schedule), a reading room, a documentation center, a gift shop, a bookstore, and a café. 

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.   From May to October, tours of the "secret" monastery gardens are available for C$17. Most tours are in French, but some are offered in English on select dates.