Montreal

Chris Knight is the senior movie reviewer at the National Post.

A peek inside the cover of this Ulysses guide reveals publishers’
offices in New York, Paris, and Montreal, so one hopes they know their
own backyard. Not to worry—the paperback-sized book (much easier to
tote around than the usual trade-sized city guides) lists things to see
and do in no fewer than 18 neighbourhoods, from the Old Town to the West
Island, with an entire chapter devoted to the Musée des Beaux-Arts.
Restaurants and accommodation are each set out in their own section,
which can mean some flipping back and forth if you’re looking both for
things to do and for places to eat in the Latin Quarter, but on the
whole the structure is straightforward and easy to use. Phone numbers
and websites are listed for most attractions, and there’s a small
English-to-French glossary and a fairly complete index. Whether anyone
reads the history of the city in guides like these is debatable, but it
is cogent and thorough should you decide to. The guide does misplace
some gems (the Passeport Montréal, a $39 three-day transit pass that
includes access to 30 attractions, is tossed in at the end of the
“getting around” section and doesn’t appear in the index) but like
the great cities they mirror, even guides have their hidden treasures.