Montreal between Old Port and Mount Royal

The Vieux-Montréal, a neighborhood founded in 1642, preserves gray-stone buildings along cobbled streets that slope down to the Old Port, today converted to a linear park along the Saint Lawrence River.

The Basilica of Notre-Dame, with its cobalt-blue neogothic interior dotted with gold stars, was completed in 1829 and remains today among North America's most photographed churches.

The Mont Royal, the wooded hill from which the city takes its name, was designed as a public park by Frederick Law Olmsted, the same landscape architect who designed Central Park in New York.

The Underground City, over thirty kilometers of climate-controlled pedestrian tunnels linking the subway, offices, and shopping centers, allows movement through downtown without ever facing Canadian winter cold.

The same architect who designed Central Park also designed the park on Mont-Royal — a detail few visitors notice while climbing breathlessly to the viewpoint.

The underground city, born from a winter that no open-air park can soften, shows a side of Montreal that has little in common with Central Park.