Shopping

You can shop in Montréal until your feet swell and your eyes cross. Whether you view shopping as the focus of your travels or simply as a diversion, you won't be disappointed. Among natives, shopping ranks right up there with dining out as a prime activity. Most Montréalers are of French ancestry, after all, and seem to believe that impeccable taste bubbles through the Gallic gene pool. The city has produced a thriving fashion industry, from couture to ready-to-wear, with a history that reaches back to the earliest trade in furs and leather. More than 1,700 shops populate the underground city alone, and many more than that are at street level and above. It is unlikely that any reasonable consumer need -- or even outlandish fantasy -- cannot be met here.

The Visitor Rebate Program, which used to allow nonresident visitors to apply for a tax rebate on items purchased in Québec, was eliminated in April 2007.

The Shopping Scene

When you're making purchases with a credit card, the charges are automatically converted at the going bank rate before appearing on your monthly statement. In most cases, this is the best deal of all for visitors. Visa and MasterCard are the most popular credit cards in this part of Canada; shops accept Discover less frequently.

Most stores are open from 9 or 10am to 6pm Monday through Wednesday, to 9pm on Thursday and Friday, and to 5pm on Saturday. Many stores are now also open on Sunday from noon to 5pm.

The Best Buys

While not cheap, Canadian Inuit sculptures and 19th- to early-20th-century country furniture are handsome and authentic. Less expensive crafts than the intensely collected Inuit works are also available, including quilts, drawings, and carvings by Amerindian and other folk artists.

The province's daring clothing designers produce some appealing fashions at prices that are often reasonable. And while demand has diminished somewhat due to animal-rights and environmental concerns, furs and leather goods remain high-ticket items.

Ice cider (cidre de glace) and ice wines made in Québec province from apples and grapes left on trees and vines after the first frost are unique, inexpensive products to bring home. They're sold in duty-free shops at the border in addition to the stores listed at the end of this chapter.

Most international clothing items, including those by such big names as Burberry and Ralph Lauren, cost approximately what they would in their countries of origin.

The Best Shopping Areas

In downtown, rue Sherbrooke is a major shopping street, with international and domestic designers, luxury shops, art galleries, and the Holt Renfrew department store.

Also downtown, rue Ste-Catherine is home to the city's top department stores and myriad satellite shops from international chains such as H&M and Tommy Hilfiger. An excursion along the 12-block stretch can keep a diligent shopper busy for hours. Nearby, rue Peel is known for its men's fashions.

In Vieux-Montréal, the western end of rue St-Paul has an ever-growing number of art galleries, clothing boutiques, and jewelry shops. Marché Bonsecours is home to a dozen art galleries, as well as boutiques selling high-end crafts and clothing.

In Plateau Mont-Royal, rue St-Denis north of Sherbrooke has blocks of shops filled with fun, funky items. Boulevard St-Laurent sells everything from budget practicalities to off-the-wall handmade fashions. And further north, avenue Laurier, between boulevard St-Laurent and avenue de l'Epée, is where to go for French boutiques, furniture and accessories shops, and products from the minds of young Québécois designers.

Shopping Complexes

A unique shopping opportunity in Montréal is the underground city, a warren of passageways connecting more than 1,700 shops in 10 shopping malls that have levels both above and below street level. Typical is the Complexe Desjardins (tel. 514/845-4636), a downtown mall that's both at street level and underground, and is bounded by rues Ste-Catherine, St-Urbain, and Jeanne-Mance and boulevard René-Lévesque. It has waterfalls and fountains, trees and hanging vines, music, lanes of shops going off in every direction, and elevators whisking people up to one of the four tall office towers.

You're also likely to end up in downtown's Place Ville-Marie, opposite Fairmont The Queen Elizabeth hotel, between boulevard René-Lévesque and Cathcart (tel. 514/861-9393; www.placevillemarie.com), which was Montréal's first major post-World War II shopping complex and is known locally as "PVM." It has some 80 boutiques and eateries. A plaque honoring Vincent Ponte, who designed the underground city and died in 2006, is on the PVM esplanade.

The Montréal tourist office's Official Tourist Guide, available at tourist offices, lists the underground city's other complexes. The main thing to remember is that when you enter a street-level shopping emporium downtown, it's likely that you'll be able to head to a lower level and connect to the tunnels and shopping hallways that lead to another set of stores.