Montreal is like a twin city of Paris, France. I had only a bit less than 2 days to cover all the major attractions in Montreal. Most of the places I visited are in Old Montreal. The buildings are so crazy huge and the French architecture looks amazing. Paved roads, the colorful vespas, ivy covered walls of huge buildings, amazingly delicious food… taste of Europe ! This trip was done in April 2025.
Driving and parking:
It’s better to park your car and walk around or use public transport to explore old Montreal. Very busy narrow streets that can be time consuming for driving around. Also, the sign boards, parking lot info were all in French. Luckly we are in an era where language translation is at our fingertips. I took pictures and got it translated on my phone. I preferred open parking lots to underground ones (maybe I’m claustrophobic) and also not good at parallel parking. The narrow roads in Montreal have parking on both sides and people park their cars so close to each other that I think one can’t even walk between two parked cars. So, I found addresses of few open parking lots in old Montreal and headed to one of them. Most of the roads in old Montreal are one way, so in the process to try to return to that parking I missed, I found another one. Here are a few parking lot addresses in old montreal that may come in handy. I was looking for parking mostly near the Notre Dame church.
- 270 Rue Saint-Antoine O
- 303 Notre-Dame St. East
- 740-770 Rue Notre-Dame Ouest Parking
- M009 – St-Sacrement/St-Nicolas, 230 St-Sacrement (this is the one I ended up using)
- 500 Place d’Armes
Now for the places to visit. My first destination was Notre Dame Basilica
Notre Dame Basilica
Built in the 1860s, it’s a magnificent Roman Catholic Church which has the same name as the famous church in Paris. It’s named after Virgin Mary. The architecture inside the church is so detail that you can’t even absorb everything.
The alter has an intense blue background during the day and has the glass/light settings to change color in evening. Crucifixion, last supper, crowing of Mother Mary are in the centre of alter. The roof has a greenish background.
The organ has 7000 pipes with the longest over 32 feet.
There was an aura (light and sound) show in the evening which was so amazing.
A short reel of Notre Dame Church :
Musuem of Illusions
It’s a really fun place for adults and kids to hang out. It would approximately take an hour to see all the exhibits. The website said it has timed entry and is better to purchase tickets online, but we purchased the tickets at the counter.
SOS Labyrinthe
This is a giant indoor maze with treasure hunt. We have to find 4 treasures in the maze. Maze has 4 sections differentiated by colored walls and lights. one would normally spend 1 -2 hours here. This is another fun place to hang out with kids.
Old Port of Montreal and Clock tower
Just beside the SOS Labyrinthe, there is the old port of Montreal and Clock tower. There is also an aerial playground and a zipline which we didnt try due to lack of time. As it was spring time, the water in the park was not filled up.
City hall and surroundings
Right beside old port, you can walk up a beautiful street to the city hall. We saw an orange vespa on this path.
short video of Museum of illusions, SOS Labyrinthe, Old Port and clock tower
St Joseph’s Oratory
St Joseph’s Oratory is a catholic shrine dedicated to St. Joseph. It’s just so huge. It has 2 churches, one at the entry level and another one at the top (a few floors conencted with escalators). Lot of exhibits there related to brother Andre and his tomb is also inside this shrine. An architectural marvel !
Mount Royal
Mount Royal is a mountain inside the Montreal city and it is also a park. Visitors usually do a hike to reach the summit of this mountain and there is well maintained path. As we didn’t have time to do the hike, we drove our car right up to the summit viewpoints. There were two viewpoints that we visited – Summit circle lookout and Sunset lookout. The drive through the park is really cool.
A short reel of St Josephs oratory and Mount Royal
Our Montreal exploring concluded with a short experience on the underground metro
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