Trip Report: Bonjour, Montréal (late June 2026)

What I did

• Arrival day: I am typically a fan of taking a HOHO bus tour on my first day in a new city, but the TripAdvisor reviews for the Montréal one made me think twice. I just walked around on my own and took some pictures instead. I also made a trip to the aforementioned health food store and bought some Quebec-produced ham and cheese. The hotel provides free breakfast but warns that you should show up before 8 a.m. to beat the crowd, so having these basics in the fridge gave me the flexibility to sleep later and eat a leisurely breakfast in my room. I also bought some Canadian-made vegan cheese puffs and potato chips.

• Took The Original Old Montréal Walking Tour offered by Guidatour. This was a 2-hour tour focused on history and architecture, and our guide was an extremely knowledgeable and personable local. One of the highlights for me was seeing the awe-inspiring interior of the Bank of Montréal, designed by McKim, Mead & White in 1913. I remarked that it smelled a bit like a church (there was something incense-like in the air), and our guide said, “Well, it is a temple of finance!” We also visited the Montréal World Trade Centre and saw the fragment of the Berlin Wall displayed there, which Mary mentioned and showed in her recent trip report. Shout-out #1 @Mary (Southeastern US): After the tour ended and our group dispersed, I walked up to Notre-Dame de Bonsecours Chapel, which was OPEN (huzzah!). I included several photos of it in my album for your enjoyment. I love the light fixture in the shape of a boat, a nod to the sailors who worshiped at the chapel and the families who prayed there for their safety.

Our guide was clearly bilingual, but the tour was entirely in English. Guidatour also offers the tour in French, and our path often crossed that of a French tour that had started at the same time as ours.

• Enjoyed some delectable gluten-free treats. This was actually a major reason for this trip! lol At Boulangerie Le Marquis on rue St-Paul, I bought three plain croissants, two pains au chocolat, and one almond croissant. All were ginormous. I had the plain croissants (warmed up in the oven) with my ham and cheese for breakfast, and the pastries with my afternoon tea. I also stopped at Cookie Stéfanie on rue St-Jacques and picked up a few of their signature chocolate chip cookies made with maple syrup, as well as a salad for dinner.

• Walked around the lovely main campus of McGill University, so green and peaceful in the midst of a busy city. Then strolled along rue Sherbrooke admiring the handful of mansions that still stand there, including the Mount Royal Club, designed by Stanford White. I intended to walk over to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, but along the way I started to feel a bit unwell and unsteady on my feet, so I decided to call an Uber and return to the hotel. Next time!

What I did (continued)

• Shout-out #2 @Mary (Southeastern US): Visited a couple of bookstores, Librairie Paragraphe on McGill College Avenue and Renaud-Bray in the Complex Desjardins. The former is very close to the university but has books of interest to many readers, not just students. I bought myself a little Québecois phrasebook titled “Canadian French,” which gives a word or phrase spelled phonetically in Québecois, followed by its equivalent in standard French and its translation in English. Fascinating reading that kept me entertained while sitting at the gate in YUL for 2.5 hours on my way home. Renaud-Bray sells mostly French-language books but has a small English-language section. I ambitiously bought the French translation of Toshikazu Kawaguchi’s novel "Before the Coffee Gets Cold." We’ll see how far I get with it.

• Cosplayed as a Francophone. Hearing the French language and having the opportunity to converse a bit in it was delightful. As usual, I would start out by speaking French but then be unable to fully comprehend the rapid-fire French reply, which would result in the French speaker switching to English. - For example, this happened in the health food store after I failed to understand that the cashier was asking me whether I had a store membership card. I did make it through a few transactions completely in French, something of which I was inordinately proud. lol And even when the bulk of the conversation was in English, I made sure to start with “Bonjour” and end with “Merci, bonne journée!”

On the 747 bus ride back to the airport, I looked at the map and noticed that the name of rue Bishop was misspelled as "Beeshop." I took a picture of it for posterity. Apparently, it was an AI goof!: https://www.ctvnews.ca/montreal/article/negative-buzz-at-the-stm-after-ai-labels-bishop-street-bus-stop-as-beeshop/

Oh, and a final word to the wise: The walk from Boulevard René-Levesque to Avenue Viger is a very steep hill. Walking down it is one thing; hiking back up it is another. After surviving it twice, I resolved that if I made any subsequent trips in that direction (which I did not), I would return via Uber.

Thanks for sharing- I used to live in Montreal and reading this made me feel quite nostalgic. Glad you had such a nice time! (Of course in the winter, it's a completely different place ☺️ )

Thanks, Cat!

I have an old friend who moved to Montréal a couple of years ago, when her husband got a job there. She told me that she likes it a lot but that “the winters are no joke!”

So glad you had a good trip, Nancy! Félicitations on gaining entry to Notre-Dame de Bonsecours Chapel 😆 I definitely have never seen a boat light fixture in a church before.

NancyG, if you ever go to Quebec City they have a wonderful all gluten free restaurant there- Veravin 2.0. They only do two seatings per night, reservations needed, the food is wonderful. Such fun for a person with celiac to look at a menu and know I can order anything on it, rather than the usual- perusing the menu while simultaneously trying to discern what dishes might work, then talking to the waiter…

Sheila, thanks so much for the restaurant recommendation! I am already researching a trip to Quebec City and will be sure to include it in my list of places to eat. I agree that dedicated gluten-free restaurants are heavenly for us.

In Montréal there was a great pizzeria, Il Focolaio, right down the block from my hotel. They offer the option of a gluten-free crust but caution that there’s a high risk of cross-contamination, so I decided to wait and get my GF pizza fix at Don Antonio in Manhattan after returning home. They prepare the GF pies in a separate kitchen and bake them in a separate oven.