Montréal

This vibrant quadrangle whose epicentre is Place des Festivals hosts a number of major international festivals each year. Home to some 30 performance venues, including Place des Arts, the area also boasts numerous cultural hot spots. Of particular note: the Théâtre du Nouveau Monde, Monument-National, Society for Arts and Technology (aka the SAT), and Club Soda.

Clustered around the Université du Québec, this small student quarter buzzes with life and action. Its axis is the ever-popular Rue Saint-Denis, home to innumerable bars, cafés, bistros, bookstores and boutiques. Add to this cinemas, performance halls, the Grande Bibliothèque and the Cinémathèque québécoise, and you’ve got one of the busiest cultural hubs in the city, a mecca for visitors and locals alike.

Close to downtown, the Plateau is arguably the city’s hippest ’hood, with its eclectic cultural goings-on, trendy restaurants and funky urban lifestyle. The bohemian borough’s main artery is Avenue du Mont-Royal, with Parc La Fontaine as its green heart. Major shopping thoroughfares alternate with small, quiet streets flanked with walk-up duplexes and triplexes and their distinctively Montréal spiral staircases.

The more than 30 km (18.5 mi.) of corridors and shopping arcades that constitute Montréal’s “underground city” connect some 2,000 shops, hotels, restaurants, cinemas, transport stations and buildings. Some 500,000 people use this vast pedestrian network daily, sheltered from the weather’s worst. Most downtown metro stations and malls provide access to the network.