Old Montreal Walking Tour: From Square Victoria to the Old Port

Old Montreal is where the city began, on a low point of land by the St. Lawrence River in 1642, and it still feels like a separate town tucked between the downtown towers and the water. Grey stone warehouses, French street names, cobbles underfoot and church bells overhead make it the most European corner of North America. This walk runs in one line from west to east, starting at Square Victoria on the edge of the old city and finishing at the Clock Tower at the end of a pier on the Old Port. On the way you pass the blue and gold interior of Notre-Dame Basilica, the exact spot where Montreal was founded, the oldest street in the city and the balcony where a French president caused a diplomatic storm. It is under three kilometers, mostly gently downhill, and among the easiest self-guided walking tours in Canada to fit into a single afternoon.

Before you set off

The walking itself takes about forty minutes, but plan on two to three hours, because the basilica deserves a slow look and the archaeology museum at Pointe-à-Callière can easily fill an hour on its own. The ground tilts gently down toward the river, so the walk is easy, but many streets are cobbled and uneven, so wear comfortable shoes with some grip. Summer and early autumn are lovely and busy, with terraces spilling onto the squares; winter is cold and can be icy underfoot, though the stone streets look wonderful under fresh snow. The basilica charges for visits and closes to sightseers during services, and the museums keep their own hours, so check before you go. Evenings have their own charm, when the old buildings are lit up and the crowds thin. Almost everything on the route is within a block or two of everything else, so feel free to follow a side street that catches your eye; you will never be far from the river or the next stop.

Square Victoria

Stand by the curving green entrance to the metro station, with its cast-iron stems, its pair of glowing lamps and the word Métropolitain written across the top in flowing letters. If it reminds you of Paris, it should. This is a genuine Art Nouveau entrance by Hector Guimard, the architect who designed the famous gateways of the Paris Métro around 1900, and it was given to Montreal by Paris in the 1960s, when French engineers had helped the city build its own metro. It is one of the most charming gifts any city has received, and it fits here perfectly. Look around the square. A statue of Queen Victoria stands on its pedestal, and the dark tower of the old stock exchange rises nearby. This was once a hay market on the western edge of the old town, and later the gateway to the business district. Today the streets around it hold international organizations, including the headquarters of the United Nations agency for civil aviation. Old Montreal begins just to the east. To get there, walk northeast along Rue Saint-Jacques, the street that was once called the Wall Street of Canada. Look at the grand bank buildings as you pass, with their columns and bronze doors, including the tall Royal Bank tower, which was once one of the tallest buildings in the British Empire. After about eight minutes the street opens onto a square with a great twin-towered church.

Notre-Dame Basilica and Place d'Armes

You are in Place d'Armes, the old parade ground of the French town and still its grandest square. In the middle stands Maisonneuve, the founder of Montreal, on a tall pedestal surrounded by four figures: Jeanne Mance, who founded the city's first hospital; the soldier Lambert Closse with his dog Pilote; the settler Charles Le Moyne; and an Iroquois warrior. Facing it across the square is Notre-Dame Basilica, its twin towers rising over the stone front. It was built in the late 1820s to a design by James O'Donnell, an Irish-born Protestant architect from New York. He became so attached to the church that he converted to Catholicism before he died, and he is buried in its crypt. If you can, go inside, because nothing about the plain grey facade prepares you for it. The vaulted ceiling is a deep blue scattered with gold stars, the altar glows with gilt and carved wood, and the stained glass windows tell the history of Montreal itself rather than stories from the Bible. Behind you, across the square, the Bank of Montreal's domed headquarters belongs to the oldest bank in Canada, founded in 1817. Next, walk down Rue Saint-Sulpice, the narrow street that runs down the left-hand side of the basilica as you face it, toward the river. At Rue Saint-Paul, jog left and then right into Place Royale, a small sloping square, and walk down to the modern building with a pointed prow at the bottom. It takes about five minutes.

Pointe-à-Callière

Stand at the foot of Place Royale, near the prow of the museum building, and imagine away almost everything you see. In May 1642 a small group of French settlers, led by Paul de Chomedey de Maisonneuve and the nurse Jeanne Mance, came ashore near this point of land, where a little river once flowed into the St. Lawrence. They named their settlement Ville-Marie and built a wooden fort, a few dozen people at the edge of a vast forest and a long way from France. Long before them, Iroquoian peoples had lived on this island, and the explorer Jacques Cartier had visited their village of Hochelaga in 1535. The point takes its name from Louis-Hector de Callière, a later governor whose house stood here. The small river is still here too, though you cannot see it; it was channeled underground in the nineteenth century. The museum in front of you, Pointe-à-Callière, opened in 1992 for the city's 350th birthday, and it is built over the real remains, so you can go down among old foundations, the first Catholic cemetery and a vaulted stone sewer that once carried that buried river. The sloping square behind you, Place Royale, served as the town's marketplace for generations. When you are ready, walk back up through Place Royale to Rue Saint-Paul, about two minutes, and stop at the top.