2026 Grand Minuit de Montréal at the Jacques-Cartier Pier.
Welcoming 2026 at Montreal’s biggest, free New Year’s Eve outdoor music event. Snowy cold -17C (0F) conditions, not a problem.
Three videos, all before the fireworks:
This video is around 9PM. Crowds just staring to come in, but at this time, easy to walk close to the main stage on the jutting Pier.
At 10:40PM mark, stage area mostly filled in, crowds still pouring in.
Around 11PM it was very difficult to enter the Pier and crowds were filling in back to Rue de le Commune and the Place-Jacques-Cartier block and Rue Notre-Dame.
2025-December-31: 2026 Grand Minuit de Montréal at the Jacques-Cartier Pier from 7:30 PM, with live music from 7:30PM to 2AM. The stage was located on the Jacques-Cartier Pier in the Old Port of Montreal, and a large TV screen broadcast set up on Place Jacques-Cartier.
Huge crowds by midnight fireworks event. Free event and excellent crowd control, though between 11PM and 2AM, prepare for long lines and major delays getting back on the metro. I left at 11:30PM this year, to avoid the huge hour slong-wait out in the cold outside Champ-de-Mars station after the fireworks!
The outdoor site also had restrooms. There was also a small ticketed area available with more facilities.
Montreal, is just an amazing city, with all its public events, all through the year.
The schedule (from the grandminuit.ca website. captured here since that site will stop working soon):
7:30pm: Doors open 7:30pm: DJ Tupi Collective 9pm: Qualité Motel 10:30pm: Special Medley (Patrick Watson, Kloô Pelgag, Anachnid, Boogàt, Pierre Kwenders, The Brooks, Joseph Sarenhes, Naya Ali, Sarahmee and more… Midnight: Fireworks 00:10am: High Klassified 1am: Nana Zen 2am : End of the event
Street food from a takeout counter on Ave Fairmount corner of St-Laurent Blvd, next to Fairmount Bagels.
Also sell homemade tomato sauce at the takeout counter for famous gnocchi. There are benches on the street, or can eat standing up from the container! Even on cold days, good to eat. Very popular place so at peak tourists times there can be a long line.
2025: $5 Gnocchi with tomato sauce $5, good enough portion. Extras: chili flakes to spice it up $0.50, and cheese $1.
2025: Pasta sauces: $10 for regular La Salsa Della Nonna and $11 for spicy Peperoncino 750ml jar. The spicy sauce with fresh hot peppers is extremely spicy!
Street ViewStreet ViewMenu and CounterPasta Sauces
Took me 3 hr 15 minutes for this bike ride. From Lionel-Groulx metro to Pont Champlain and then from Brossard to Longueuil and then on Jacques-Cartier Bridge back to Montreal and up to Petite-Italie Mozart and Boul Laurent street corner.
Mileage unclear. Maps route below says 27 km but actual ride Maps Timeline said 38 km. The latter does include around 30 minutes of wrong turns to finally get from Atwater St to the start of Pont Champlain, around 1-2 km of extra distance.
There are no good directions on the bike paths showing how to get to start of the bridges. Google maps does a decent job but following it can be difficult since it is not always clear and requires extra biking around some turns. It is most complicated getting on to Pont Champlain from Montreal.
Pont Champlain bike path has easy gradual slope. There are a handful of great lookout points.
Jacques-Cartier has a bit more steeper paths. There are two bridges here, two sections. There is only one lookout point and it is at the intersection of the road going to the St Helen’s Island.
Nuns Island bike path
Pont Champlain view of the bridge cable stays and concrete towers.
Pont Champlain bike path. View of downtown Montreal.
From Jacques-Cartier bridge bike path. View of the steel beams.
From Jacques-Cartier bridge bike path. View of a lighthouse and Biosphere on Parc Jean-Drapeau in Île Sainte-Hélène. Montreal.
Hot summer. Find a nice public pool, go when it is not crowded. Avoid hot afternoon sun! There is a minor charge for the large Parc Jean-Drapeau pool (and beach) and totally worth it. Easy access from the metro to this Aquatic Complex.
Bixi monthly pass this year was just $20 and even though bike availability and dock availability was not good, most of the time it was usable so worth getting it.
Quebec has a nice bike trail system: La Route Verte.
Montreal biking, especially in Verdun, means great views riding along the St Lawrence river.
This post is about a ride from Verdun Beach to Estacade du Pont Champlain and Chemin de la Petite Voie du Fleuve.
It crosses two bridges over the St Lawrence river.
La Route Verte 5 from Verdun Beach is the starting point for this bike ride going north and east.
Then to Route Verte 1 and Nun’s Island (Île-Des-Sœurs) bridge bikeway. This runs along side highway Rt 15.
Then cross the island bikeway to get to the 2.3 km Estacade du Pont Champlain.
That ends in Chemin de la Petite Voie du Fleuve which is a long thin strip of land in the river and has bikeable non-paved gravel bike paths. That part of the land only accessible by the bike path!
The above round-trip path is around 11km. That can be easily extended before the start or after the end to cover 30km or more.
The effort required is low – mostly flat path with elevations around bridge entry points.
From the Montreal city bridges web site: Looking for an exceptional view of the St. Lawrence River? During the day and evening, cyclists and pedestrians can take the 2-km bicycle path over the Estacade from Île des Sœurs to the seaway dike bicycle path network.
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Night ride
Summer days are hot so good to ride at night. Clear moonlight and street light offer good views, but a couple of important points to note. Bugs! So many, in some parts of the ride. Should wear clear or night-lens closed eyewear to avoid bugs getting into eyes. And keep mouth closed.
And on the night of Fri Aug 5 2022, at 9pm, a long stretch of the Estacade was being used by birds! Lots of birds. Biking through them was scary – they would fly at you but go over your head.
On the Chemin de la Petite Voie du Fleuve end of the Estacade also got covered by many cobwebs! No spiders though (I think, I hope), thankfully.
Still all worth it – the views are great and the night was cool at 75F/23C. Only saw a couple of other riders and people walking at that time.
Should also try this in winter months. The trail is open April through December, so November would be a good bug-free time for night rides before it closes.
Parc René Lévesque
Another good ride on the south side from Verdun is to the Parc René Lévesque.
Two options: ride via Bd LaSalle next to the river, or the bike path along the Lachine Canal. This is around 10km one way.
Tour la Nuit is the Montreal Night Bike Ride event.
It is part of the Go Bike Montréal Festival (GVO – Go Velo MTL) which ran from May 26-June 2 (2019).
Friday May 31 2019 was the Tour La Nuit biking event, a 21 km course in downtown Montreal, on regular streets which were closed to all car traffic.
It was a wonderful experience, though marred by incomplete information about the event (Velo Quebec #fail) and Bixi bike-rental app and organization foul ups.
On the plus side: when one finally gets on the bike and rides on the street, the crisp cool breeze, the wide open streets and night lights makes for an unforgettable experience. Luckily, too, there was no rain during this event while it rained on the Sunday’s full day Montreal Bike Ride event!
Along many inside neighborhood streets, such as Rue Dandurand, many sidewalk corners were filled with adults and kids cheering on the thousands of passing cyclists. The whole city likes to join in and party!
The highlight of the whole ride was the section of the ride that went inside the Olympic Stadium! They also had a number of marching band groups going full blast inside the stadium with cyclists riding around, cool stuff. Tour La Nuit inside the Olympic Stadium Video
As with all public Montreal events, the facilities and services were outstanding. Plenty of port-a-potties restrooms at the start, many volunteers along the way guiding the cyclists, and big blow out at the end with DJ, music, food, drink, even a ferris wheel on the park. And free chocolate milk at end of the ride! All very nice.
Registration is required and is $35 for adults.
Many kids also participate in the event, so it is a whole family event.
Riders deck out their bikes with lights and such.
Things to know: It would have good to know about the actual event. Velo Quebec organized the event but their web site was missing key information which would have made the event far more enjoyable!
First of all, they say the gates will open at 20:15 hours and last riders can leave at 21:15. And they said the ride takes about 90 minutes at average speed.
But – it is a mess at the starting line! There are thousands of cyclists, and only 5-7 cyclists go out at one time. So it took over 40 minutes of inching along Ave Parc even before we could get on our bikes to ride on. It is all festive and such, but knowing this would make the delay much more understanda
In addition to 40 minutes delay at the start, add another 30-40 minutes along the course when people had to dismount and walk their bikes due to congestion or steep inclines.
Add even more time to slow down and enjoy the Montreal night sights along the way, especially special events like biking inside the Olympic Stadium, and it takes a good 2.5 to 3 hours to complete the course, far more than the 75 minutes I thought it would take based on the FAQ at the Velo Quebec site.
Far worse mess for me was the Bixi #fail. I decided to rent a Bixi, to support more of Montreal business, but their app and organization was a major letdown. The app refused to accept the promo code for the event. I tried many things (restart app, phone) and Velo Quebec booth guys also checked the code and confirmed it was right, Bixi app continually popped up “Invalid Code” message and their customer support was totally useless. I needed a bike, so I then bought a day pass on the Bixi app. I was hoping to dock the bike and re-rent every 30-45 minutes to minimize total cost. I did make around 3 stops, but would have made 4 or 5 optimally. Bixi charges $3 for every 15 minutes over, so the charges crept up fast when every Bixi dock along the second half of the ride was full (even though the app said 1 dock free or such).
So that is the second thing to note: if using Bixi, expect things to mess up. Ride is still enjoyable 🙂
And after the ride, I contacted Bixi e-mail support detailing all the problems and they were much more helpful than their phone support. They refunded all the excess charges, so in the end, Bixi is not too bad.
Parc Rene-Levesque is huge, and having bike to see it all is actually quite convenient. In addition to the greenery, the park has a number of large and interesting sculptures by local artists. From a large engraved stone to metal structures. And all on a thin sliver of land jutting out into the river.
To the north of that park is another similar sliver of land that has a park and houses the Lachine Canal Historic Site.
That too has some sculptures scattered around the park, and the bike trail there goes next to the old Lachine Canal, with interesting looking houses on the side.
Found a great crepe place! Had a favorite in the past that closed down, now finally found a great crepe place again.
Spanel Crêperie, great crepes, breakfast and lunch. 1960 Notre-Dame St W, Montreal. A nice long walk from the metro station Lionel-Groulx. Walk on Notre-Dame to see a bunch of other great restaurants.
And many other things in Montreal, always a good time to be had! Christmas parade, old cafe, new cafe (Iranian), mini ComicCom, Ska Music Festival, street art animation. Japanese Izakaya – Imadake – Miso marinated grilled cod yummy with rice!
Many photos here, including description of each photo:
A fall event that will light up the three Jardin botanique cultural gardens in grand style. It is a must-see event, and only from Sep 7 – Oct 31 (2018 dates). The lighted trees and sculptures are enchanting to see in the dark night.
The three spaces are:
First Nations Garden
Japanese Garden
Chinese Garden
The Chinese Garden is the most elaborate presentation. There is a good Circle of Life presentation, projected on a tree, at the First Nations Garden.
Allow 90+ minutes for entire visit.
The Gardens of Light ticket is purchased separately and allows entry only at a specific time.
That same ticket also allows access to the greenhouses in the botanical garden on that day. Touring that takes 90+ minutes and is worth visiting too. The greenhouses have plants and trees from all over the world.
So arrive a couple of hours before your Gardens of Light time and visit both the greenhouses as well the lighted cultural gardens.
