Founded as Ville-Marie in 1642, Montréal spent two centuries as Canada's commercial capital before Toronto overtook it in the twentieth century. The loss turned out to be creatively productive: cheaper rent, an intact housing stock of triplexes and exterior staircases, and a culture that never fully industrialised its downtown.
Language is the organising fact. French is the working language of the city and the province, and Montréal's bilingualism is lived rather than ceremonial — conversations switch mid-sentence. Visitors are not expected to be fluent, but opening in French is the difference between being served and being welcomed.
The city's cultural infrastructure is unusually dense for its size: the Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, a serious contemporary dance and circus scene, and a summer festival calendar — the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal and Just for Laughs among them — that closes streets for weeks at a time.
