The choir sang gloriously. The organ, built by Casavant, Canada's premier organ builder, was varied in tonal color and beautifully played. The simple sanctuary, lit by sunshine streaming through brilliant stained glass, was filled with an English-language Anglican liturgy with roots as old as the building itself.

A block away, in a towering, ornate nave topped with its landmark dome (a scale model of St. Peter's in Rome), the Catholic Mass was sung and spoken in French, punctuated by a larger Casavant organ, whose mighty pipes dominated the room during the postlude.

On a recent Sunday morning, these two services seemed to me to epitomize the vibrancy and variety that Montreal offers the American tourist. St. George's Anglican Church , which dates back to 1870, reflects the British influence that ruled the colony from the 1760s to the 1970s, and whose effects are seen in place names throughout the city, from a subway stop named Square Victoria to a quarter called Sherbrooke. The Catholicism found in the Basilique-Cathedrale Marie-Reine-du-Monde, which was begun in 1870, was brought by the founding French, who established the Utopian-intended Ville-Marie (Town of Mary) in 1642 and tried to live peacefully with the inhabitants by converting them. (It was not a successful experiment.) From then, the population seesawed between the two languages and cultures, with a liberal sprinkling of other influences, until a resurgence of the French culture in the 20th century.

Today, despite Quebec's independence faction, the two cultures mix most pleasantly for the American visitor. While French is aggressively the preferred language (billboards and menus were not translated), hotel staffs and vendors all spoke English and many took American dollars, which at the time of my visit was virtually equivalent to Canadian currency. I did encounter two exceptions: One office store wanted to charge me $3 U.S. for a $2 (Canadian) job. And a Bureau de Change near the Place Jacques Cartier, where two ATMs did not work, forced me to change money at a ridiculous exchange rate before I could buy a sandwich. The native American artisans outside, however, took my American bills and even offered change in American.

I stayed in the Marriott downtown, where a quartet of conference hotels did a booming international business, but the immediate surroundings (with the exception of my two neighboring churches) were uninspiring - gleaming highrises mixed in with a few older buildings. However, the Centre CDP Capital is worth seeing. A shining display of Quebec know-how (according to the guide on my walking tour), this "green" building over an underground expressway recycles air and water and features a maze of pedestrian skyways. And the nearby conference center dapples those inside with colorful windows reminiscent of stained glass.

On the other hand, a quest in that area for interesting food ended at a pleasant, but hardly upscale bagel place (which, surprisingly, boasted a wide variety of crepes). For good restaurants, you had to travel. However, a brief Metro ride (pricey at $2.75 Canadian for one trip, but delightfully quiet on rubber wheels and surprisingly clean) brought me to Plateau Mont-Royal, with its urban shops and overflowing restaurants. For a town that is so often buried in snow, nearly every restaurant opened huge sliding doors to the fresh air in a way that recalls New Orleans. Settled at the PizzaDelic, I even managed to hear a lively jazz trio as I enjoyed delicious thin-crust pizza. Higher-scale places abounded, but I opted for the music.
A warning to the shoppers: On Saturday night at 7 p.m., most shops were closed, although the restaurants were booming. Even Starbucks was doing a brisk trade, with added offerings such as Melange Mont-Royale.

Another must-visit was the old Montreal, where British and French architecture coexist peacefully, along with the Bank of Montreal building modeled on the Parthenon. Here there was much to look at and enjoy, including the indescribably ornate sanctuary of Notre-Dame Basilica, whose interior design was modeled after the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris.

When it was completed in 1829, it was the largest church north of Mexico City.  Here, Celine Dion was married. And at the funeral of Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Fidel Castro and Jimmy Carter had to be seated in the same ornate pew, carefully separated by local dignitaries.

The thronged main street of Old Montreal, Rue de St. Paul, meanders a bit because it was Montreal's first road, built on a footpath. Soon I arrived at the Place Jacques Cartier, which solved most shopping needs. A haven for artisans and souvenir shops, it also featured numerous restaurants, many with the open-air option mentioned above.  Epitomizing the mix of cultures, there towered over the multilingual clamor a statue of Admiral Nelson, who had nothing to do with Canada but was revered by the British who helped colonize it.
I found in Montreal the exoticism of a French town with a dash of American Midwestern friendliness.

Happy traveling!

(Photos by Thomas Simonet)