Montréal
I've been to Montréal twice; for a day in 1996, then for four days in 2000. There's so much to see that I think it's best to split this bit into three - Downtown, the old city and port, and finally the Olympic Park.
Second in population to Toronto, Montréal stands on a huge island - around 32 miles long, I think - at the confluence of the St. Lawrence and Ottawa rivers. It is apparently the second largest French-speaking city in the world, although strictly speaking it is bilingual. There are four universities here, two French-speaking and two English-speaking. The overall impression we got, though, was of a very French city!
Late in the afternoon of the day we arrived, we took a bus tour from Square Dorchester, which took us all around downtown, Vieux Montréal and to the Olympic Park via the eastern suburbs. The tour lasted around three hours, and the guide gave us a commentary in English and French. It gave us an idea of the places we wanted to revisit over the following days.
Click on the pictures for the full size photos.
Downtown is situated between Boulevard René Lévesque and Sherbrooke Street. It's a mixture of modern skyscrapers and shopping centers, old churches and museums. Plus plenty of restaurants. This statue stands in Square Dorchester, if I remember correctly. 
This second picture shows the Anglican cathedral of Christ Church, at the intersection of St Catherine's and University Street. I think it shows the contrast between the modern skyscrapers and the classic architecture of the churches. Don't be too impressed, though - I saw the picture originally in a book, and decided to take my own version of it!
Northeast along Réne Lévesque is the cathedral of Marie-Reine-du-Monde, which is a half size replica of St Peter's Basilica in Rome. Even so, it's still pretty huge! To quote the Berlitz 
guidebook, the nave is 328 feet long, and the vault of the dome is 250 feet high.
The bus tour took us past here and the guide told us the statues were hockey players....I don't think that was totally true! Actually, they're apostles..
There's plenty of interesting sculptures to be found around the streets. I liked this first one of the two youngsters on the bench. The bench even has "graffiti"!
This other sculpture, called "Illuminated Crowd" was of interest to me as it's by Raymond Mason who was born in Birmingham. There is a sculpture of his, in a similar style, called "Forward" (the city's motto) in the centre of Birmingham.
I'm a great fan of old buildings, and appreciate classical architecture. Some modern buildings can be so lacking in character. However, some of the skyscrapers we saw on our travels through Canadian cities were very impressive in their design. This one, Place Montréal-Trust, is one such example. I thought it was worthy of a photo!
If we're talking of impressive buildings, though, how about this? The Basilica of St-Joseph's Oratory. It's not strictly speaking downtown, in fact it's near to Mont Royal. Anyway, it's a beautiful church, set on the hillside. No, we didn't climb up all those steps - there are 283 of them and there just wasn't time as we had to get back on the bus! This photo was taken in early evening, around 6pm.
I think this shot of the skyline, taken from Ile Ste-Helene, would have been better if the sun had been shining! In fact, just after I'd taken it the rain started and we made our way quickly back to the Metro station. It's not particularly clear, but it shows the old town and port backed by the downtown skyscrapers. The silver dome in the right foreground is Bonsecours market.
Vieux Montréal | Olympic Park
