Little of Everything, Montreal

The Dorval-Mirabel dilemma. You will most likely arrive in Dorval (YUL) now, even from abroad (unless you are cargo!). Dorval is a Can$31 cab ride from downtown and takes 20-45 minutes depending of the traffic.

The Montreal metro system is clean, fast, quiet and reliable. Runs from 5AM to about 1AM depending of the station and day of the week (check before so you can come back at the end of the evening).

Taxis are semi-cheap and won't take you for a ride. It's $2.75 for pickup, $1.30 per km and $0.50 per minute of waiting after that.

One of the easiest cities to get around. Slight hills make walking a breeze and nothing beats their Metro for speed and convienience. Best bet is to buy a Metro card for your stay at the nearest station. It will be validated on your first use and can get you through the subway system and connect you to the buses.

Montréal has a good transportation system, buses criss cross all the island, and metro gets to the main points into the city. Tickets are valid for about 90 minutes, by requesting a transfer token or ticket, so you can combine metro and buses at your own convenience. By Oct. 2003 was $2.50 for a trip (a little expensive for me, but you can buy 6 tickets for $10, or other saving packs like 1 day, several days, week or monthly passes). Anyway, you also may try raising your thumb, but into the city, the only vehicle you may get is one like the ones at the picture :)

Festivals lasts all summer long in Montreal, most of them have outside activities that will close down some of the main streets (St-Catherine, St-Denis, etc.). These closures happen at night. So leave you car home or be ready for a long wait despite police officiers trying to help out with the traffic around the closed zone.

Use Destina.ca! This is a very nice web site that can find a hotel, car rental and cheap flights to and around Canada! The airport code for Montreal is YUL are YMX (but YUL is the main airport,the other...)

Http://www.destina.ca

You can fly in to the Dorval or Mirabel airports. We also have a port and driving in from the US or anywhere else i canada is fairly easy thanks to our highways. We also have a big train terminal downtown. For the more adventurous, we are connected to Quebec, Florida and the rest of Canada through a huge bike path system that is well indicated and easy to use.

I used the train to get to Montreal. It was a nice ride from Toronto. http://www.viarail.com/
The Metro is very easy and convenient for getting around Montreal. http://www.lookmontreal.com/mapmetro.html

there is a train that departs once a day from NYC, but it leaves at 7am and is really expensive. the greyhound is still expensive too. it took a helluva long time to pass by the border inspectors--the US customs & immigration people were much pickier and took more time than the Canadians. for some reason greyhound cut a deal with this guy in saratoga springs, so there is a totally useless bus break right after and before the on in Albany wherein you are herded into this cheezy restaraunt.
the Montreal metro uses the same cars as the new york subway! because in fact, all NYC subway cars are made in Quebec! neat. this creates a sensation of perpetual dejavu