F1 Holiday part 2: Montreal

Montreal, the second largest city in Canada, has a lot to offer to travellers. Today, F1 Technical takes you to Montreal today, the city of Jacques Villeneuve, to give you a brief introduction of the sparkling city.

Montreal is the second largest city in Canada and the largest city in the province of Quebec. It is the francophone Metropolis of North America and also nicknamed The City Of Saints, due to the many streets starting with the name "Saint". In 2006, according to Traveler's Digest and AskMen.com, Montreal is ranked as the Number #1 city in the world to live in for its culture, architecture, history and ambience.

Montreal is located on the Island of Montreal at the confluence of the Saint Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. The port of Montreal lies at one end of the St. Lawrence Seaway, which is the river gateway that stretches from the Great Lakes up into the Atlantic Ocean. Montreal is bordered by the St. Lawrence river on its south side, and by the Rivière des Prairies on the north.

Downtown Montreal

Downtown Montreal lies at the foot of Mount Royal, which is designated as a major urban park. The Downtown area contains dozens of notable skyscrapers which, by law, cannot be higher than Mount Royal. The Tour de la Bourse is also a significant building in Montreal, as it is where all stock and derivative trades take place, and is also home to a successful program to encourage nesting peregrine falcons.

Place Ville-Marie, an I. M. Pei-designed cruciform office tower built in 1962, sits atop an underground shopping mall that forms the nexus of Montreal's underground city, one of the world's largest, with indoor access to over 1,600 shops, restaurants, offices, businesses, museums and universities, as well as metro stations, train stations, bus terminals, and tunnels extending all over downtown. The central axis for downtown is Saint Catherine Street.

Other streets like Saint-Denis, Peel, de la Montagne, de Maisonneuve and Crescent are very popular as well. Downtown Montreal is located between the mountain Mount Royal and the St Lawrence River. Two islands are located in front of the Montreal Skyline panorama, Île Ste. Hélène, and Ile Notre-Dame. The Notre Dame island hosts the Canadian Grand Prix and Formula One car races, as well as the Champ Car tournament. La Ronde (now owned by American company Six Flags) is the biggest amusement park in Montreal and is located on Île Ste. Hélène. The Montreal Fireworks Festival is held there every summer.

The basic Skyline view may be seen from one of two lookouts on Mount Royal. The lookout at the Belevedere takes in downtown, the river, and the Montérégien Hills, and on clear days the Adirondak Mountains of Upstate New York are visible. The view of eastern lookout on Remembrance Rd. sweeps out toward the Olympic Stadium, and beyond. Many tourists visit these lookouts. Montreal is known for the contrast between old and new. The Maison des Coopérants (a 146 m / 479 ft tall building) and 1000 De La Gauchetière are located immediately behind the city's Anglican and Roman Catholic cathedrals. Much of Old Montreal has been kept the way it was back in the day Montreal was first established. Old Montreal was a worldwide port, but shipping has been moved further east to the Port de Montreal site, leaving the Old Port/Vieux-Port as an historical area. The glow of the city lights can be visible from different parts of the surrounding American States.

Cultural centers

Montreal is the centre of Quebec culture and a major centre of Canadian culture in general. It has many specialized museums such as the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, the Musée d'art contemporain, the Redpath Museum, the Stewart Museum, the McCord Museum of Canadian History, and the Canadian Centre for Architecture. The Place des Arts cultural complex houses the MAC and several theatres, and is the seat of the Montreal Opera and for the moment the Montreal Symphony Orchestra, which is slated to receive a new concert hall adjacent to Place des Arts.

Chinatown

Montreal has a small but active Chinatown just south of downtown, featuring many Chinese shops and restaurants, as well as a number of Vietnamese establishments. Several of these restaurants offer dim sum from as early as 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. and can be quite crowded, especially on Sundays. The principal axes of Chinatown are Saint Laurent Boulevard and La Gauchetière Street.

Mount Royal

Mount Royal is Montreal's outstanding urban park, designed in 1876 by Frederick Law Olmsted, best known as the designer of New York's Central Park. Mount Royal's features include the Chalet and the Kondiaronk Belvedere overlooking downtown Montreal, and man-made Beaver Lake with its recently renovated pavilion. Mount Royal is topped by an illuminated cross that has become a Montreal landmark.

Observant hikers on the park's many trails will find an abundance of small wildlife. In the winter, the park is the site of numerous cross-country ski trails and a new, refrigerated skating rink near Beaver Lake.

Every Sunday in the summer, hundreds of people gather at the statue of Confederation co-founder George-Étienne Cartier at the foot of Mount Royal for several hours of drumming, dancing, and juggling, in an event that has come to be known as the Tam-Tams.

Montreal and F1

As motorsport fans you can't forget to go and take a look at the Gilles Villeneuve Circuit on Ile Notre-Dame. You can also visit Jacques Villeneuve's own trendy nightclub and restaurant in Montreal called Newtowng. It is located on Crescent Street, one of Montreal's hottest nightspots. (http://www.newtown.ca/)

This sparkling city has of course much more to offer, but we'll let you find out more about that.