Photograph by Guido Cozzi/Atlantide
"Je me souviens" (I remember) is Quebec’s provincial motto, and history is present everywhere in Montreal, a city teeming with architecture and culture from the past three centuries. Canada’s second largest, third oldest, and most cosmopolitan city is also a hub for technological innovation and avant-garde art—there’s an ultramodern, global sensibility here that coexists with a sense of the past. Similarly, French and English, once considered the “two solitudes,” have intermingled to make a culture of easy bilingualism that is now a fait accompli for most Montrealers. Montreal is, at once, consummately European and also grounded in New World enthusiasm. It’s also known as the “city of festivals,” with year-round celebrations of food, film, music, and culture. “We’re a bread and circuses kind of town, and we contain multitudes,” says Bill Brownstein, city columnist, the Gazette, the city’s only English daily.
Read My Montreal by Taras Grescoe
