Travel

Central Montreal Edit

Ville-Marie borough Edit

Montreal is composed of 19 large boroughs. The most important one in central Montreal for visitors is Ville-Marie, which is further subdivided into neighbourhoods. From West to East, some of its neighbourhoods include:

Understand Edit

Orientation Edit

As we see ourselves - Assuming north is up

It has been said that Montréal is the only city in the world where the sun "rises in the south."

Montrealers use an unconventional compass, using the river and the mountain as cardinal points. When you are downtown, the St Lawrence River is “south” and Mount Royal is “north”; making the West Island and the East End correct in both their names and orientations. The dividing line between "east" and "west" downtown is the boulevard Saint-Laurent. In downtown, streets slope up "north" toward Mount Royal. This local compass tends to confuse visitors because the “East” End is really to the north and the “West” Island is to the south, and the St Lawrence River runs almost northeast-southwest at this location.

Most local maps use this convention as do the highways around the city. For example, Autoroute 15 north actually runs northwest and Autoroute 40 east runs northeast.

To underscore this fact, a Montreal map will show that the "south end" of Victoria Bridge is in fact further north than the "north end".

Gay Montreal Edit

Montreal is an extremely inviting destination for gay and lesbian tourists. Canada's contributions to gay rights have recently become widely known, but Quebec was the first province in Canada to pass a non-discrimination law for sexual orientation and to provide same-sex civil unions (although Toronto was the first municipality in Canada to do so). Same-sex marriage is legal in Quebec (neither residency nor citizenship are required for a marriage license, but there is a three-week waiting period after you receive the licence) as well as in the rest of Canada. Canadian and Quebec immigration law allow residents to sponsor their same-sex partners or spouses.

Montreal itself is a very safe, open, and inviting city. The métro station in the Gay Village, Beaudry, is marked with rainbow pillars. Montreal's pride celebration, Divers/Cité[2] (last week of July, first week of August) is the second-largest in Canada after Toronto 's.