Montreal

About Montreal

Montréal is a Canadian homeport for fall-foliage cruises running the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City and on to New England. Ships dock at the Iberville Passenger Terminal in the Old Port, walking distance from Old Montréal's cobblestone streets, the Notre-Dame Basilica, and Place Jacques-Cartier. The Underground City and the Plateau's cafés fill out walkable days. Turnarounds cluster late September through mid-October.

• Montreal is the largest predominantly French-speaking city in the Americas, with French as its official language and over 85% of city residents considering themselves fluent in French.
• Founded in 1642 as Ville-Marie ('City of Mary'), the city gets its modern name from Mount Royal — the triple-peaked mountain that rises at its centre and still provides a forested green retreat in the urban core.
• Montreal is the only Canadian city to have hosted the Summer Olympics, doing so in 1976, and also hosted the famous 1967 World's Fair (Expo 67) which drew 50 million visitors.
• The city hosts the Montreal International Jazz Festival, recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's largest jazz festival, drawing millions of fans each summer.
• Montreal has an extraordinary underground pedestrian network called RESO (or the Underground City) — at over 33 km, it is the world's largest underground complex, connecting 10 metro stations, 2,000 shops, and 200 restaurants.