CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT : Montreal ’ s La Grande Roue de Montreal is the tallest observation wheel in Canada ; Mary Queen of the World Cathedral across the street from the Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth Hotel ; the Montreal Botanical Garden ; Old Port at sunset ; Old Montreal offers shops and sidewalk dining ; the Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth ; the Pointe-à-Callière Museum .
Nuts & Bolts
Travel Time : Six hours from Providence . How to Get There : I-95 North to I-89 North . Bucket List for Next TIme : Hiking and nature walks at Mount Royal Park , which is home to the 764-foot-tall peak that gave the city its name . Worth a Detour : It might not change your life , as one visitor on Tripadvisor claimed , but the World ’ s Tallest Filing Cabinet in Burlington , Vermont , is certainly worth a side trip .
FOR THE HISTORY ENTHUSIAST
Montreal , Canada
Just six hours to our North , cosmopolitan Montreal has all the charm of a European city without the pesky jet lag , overtourism and language barriers . Sure , French might be the official language of Quebec , but most Montreal residents also speak English , which will make your time in Canada ’ s second-largest city a little more manageable . Which comes in handy , if , say , you once felt so confident in your ability to speak French that you waltzed into a Paris cafe , ordered a croissant and an apple in the local language , and then nearly crawled under the table when you realized you instead asked for a croissant and a potato . ( In my defense , the French words for apple — pomme — and potato — pomme de terre — are practically indistinguishable .)
But ha ! No need to worry about that in bilingual Montreal , where the cultural delights , architecture , cuisine and history are everything you ’ d expect from a city with roots as an international trading port at the confluence of the St . Lawrence River , where French colonists built the Ville Marie fortress in 1642 on land where various Indigenous ( First Peoples ) tribes had lived for 8,000 years .
You can delve into the city ’ s history , including the architectural remains of Ville Marie , at the Pointe-à-Callière Museum ( pacmusee . qc . ca ) in Old Montreal . It stands on several layers of ruins that are thousands of years old and pristinely preserved , with projections showing where windows once stood , and lights and sounds turning a
360-foot stretch of sewer into a neon-lit , subterranean wonderland . ( Really . It ’ s amazing .)
The Fairmont the Queen Elizabeth ( fairmont . com / queen-elizabeth-montreal ) made a swanky diving-off point for our explorations . Opened in 1958 , the downtown icon has hosted the likes of the late Queen Elizabeth and countless other celebrities within its Industrial-style walls . It ’ s where John Lennon and Yoko Ono held their famous “ bed-in ” for peace in 1969 and wrote and recorded “ Give Peace a Chance .” The lobby ’ s coffee shop is the perfect place to sit with a bracing cold brew and a breakfast sandwich while you plan out the day ’ s travels .
The hotel leads down to Montreal ’ s ingenious Underground City , a twenty-mile network of metro stations , shops and restaurants that keeps you shielded from the elements on rainy days , snowy days or sultry summer afternoons when the temperature and humidity are both hovering somewhere around ninety-five . — Dana Laverty
58 RHODE ISLAND MONTHLY l SEPTEMBER 2024